


Stardust, You and I

by timetoboldlygo



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Amnesia, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Namine/Xion - Freeform, and also once upon a time they were childhood sweethearts, and like.... maybe riku is gay and can see him, and was invisible to everyone else, gratuitous purposeful misunderstand of magic, i say light angst because literally everyone forgot who sora was except kairi so!!! fun times, riku is one LONELY boy, so like if sora was cursed to only be seen by people with magical powers, tfw when ur a grad student who has no ambitions so u fall in love with a cursed witch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2020-10-14 08:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20597663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetoboldlygo/pseuds/timetoboldlygo
Summary: Riku needed one thing: an apartment to live in. That was it. But he didn't really have any other options than the apartment listing that read "must be okay with a very sweet cat and one somewhat messy ghost." He didn't expect the apartment (or what counted as the ghost) to change his life. He definitely didn't plan on magic or witches. And Sora - well, Sora was a bonus, a beautiful shining person who didn't deserve the ugly black curse on his heart. Sora, who went out of his way to help people. Sora, who was magic. Sora, who glowed.It was inevitable, probably, that someone as lonely Riku would fall in love with him. Discovering everything he was missing and everything he had forgotten, now that was a surprise to them both.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Professor's Wife](https://archiveofourown.org/works/173254) by [foolish_mortal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolish_mortal/pseuds/foolish_mortal). 

> soooo!!! a kind of witch-fic, a kind of curse-fic, either way.... riku is there and he's gonna break the curse, baybeeeeeee. this was inspired by one of my favorite fics of all time, the professor's wife, and i just ... really loved that concept for soriku!!!
> 
> title from "Stardust" by the new politics
> 
> also, incredible thanks to claudia @hearts_in_tune and maayan @gay_to_dawn for both reading this n being like "wtf why haven't u posted it" because there was no reason i hadn't posted except i was kinda lazy.... so thank you for kicking my ass into gear

The post on the Facebook page read: _looking for 1 roommate to fill a bedroom in a 3 bed 2 bath house! Rent is 750 a month, plus utilities. The house is a ten min bus ride from campus and a fifteen min walk from downtown. Has a backyard and a driveway! Room can be furnished with bed, mattress, desk, and dresser._

_I’m an artist and student at Radiant Garden University, and I work part time as a tutor. All genders are welcome! 420-friendly. Must be okay with a very sweet cat and one somewhat messy ghost._

Aside from the ghost part, it was the most encouraging post Riku had found on the housing page. The pictures of the room and the house were really nice - it had a nice porch with a swing and landscaping that, quite frankly, Riku would have considered out of reach of most college students. It wasn’t too far off campus, either. There were a couple of pictures of the girl - Naminé - on Facebook and she did not look like someone so into ghosts or astrology or whatever that she would be awful to live with or possible refuse to life with him based on whatever his sign was. She looked like a normal art student.

And, well. Riku was kind of desperate. And there were worse roommate ads, even when he did factor in the ghost thing. It was hard to find housing when you were a grad student and didn’t know a single soul at your new university and being superstitious was better than the guy who insisted who couldn’t have any sound after eight p.m. no matter what. 

He messaged her to see the house the following day.

But the guy who opened the door wasn’t Naminé. At least not according to the Facebook photos. He was, however, beautiful, so beautiful that Riku felt his breath catch in his throat. He was short and lean, with brown hair sticking up everywhere, tanned, beautiful skin, and rows of glimmering earrings in both ears. He was also looking at his phone and sucking on a lollipop. “Xion, did you -” and then he looked up at Riku and promptly dropped his phone on the hardwood floor.

“Oh _shit_.” He looked like he’d been the one to see a ghost.

Riku stooped down to pick up the phone beeping cheerfully at him from the floor. It didn’t look injured, thankfully. “Uh, here.”

The boy honest to god jumped, eyes wide, like a frightened animal. Riku felt bad for startling him. “Me?”

“It’s your phone, isn’t it?”

The guy took it. His blue _blue _eyes were open so wide and his hands were warm against Riku’s, so warm that when he pulled away, Riku’s fingers were actually cold, even though it was a warm eighty degrees in May. Riku felt like he must have known him, from somewhere, but he didn’t - he’d remember someone with that presence. He was just so _bright_. “Uh, yes. Thanks.”

He just stared at Riku for a long moment, until Riku prompted, “I’m Riku? I’m here to see the room.”

The guy blinked, like he’d just realized how weird he was being. He had faint freckles across the bridge of his nose. “Oh. Oh! I’m Sora. Sorry, I thought you were someone else! Come on in.”

Riku stepped inside, out of the sun into the cool, blessed air conditioning. The house was - well, big, but very cluttered. Practically every bit of wall space was covered with art or photos, which only served to make it feel like a home instead of just a house It was completely and totally unlike the cramped apartment Riku had shared with four other boys at his last apartment. There had been one bathroom and nothing had made Riku so desperate to leave as unlocking the puke-green paint-peeled door to that place. Walking into this place was like a breath of fresh air. “Nice place.”

Sora scrubbed at his face. “Thanks.” He pulled the lollipop from his mouth - his lips were stained kind of red from it, though Riku was trying not to stare - and yelled up the stairs, “Nami, your roommate ad guy is here!”

“Oh!” Riku heard the creak of a door and saw feet coming down the stairs, along with a little gray cat following her. It was so picturesque Riku considered pinching himself. It would be just like him to imagine a beautiful place to live in. Very mundane. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the door!”

“That’s Naminé,” Sora said to Riku. Naminé _did_ looked like the Facebook photos; she was a small blonde girl with a paintbrush shoved behind her ear. With actual paint in it. There was paint all over her hair, too. “Naminé, you didn’t tell me _Riku _was coming today.”

Naminé frowned, brow furrowing like she didn’t see what the problem was. “I’m sure I did.”

“I mean - in _passing_, maybe.” He stared at her. She stared back. 

Whatever conversation they were having through mind-meld or whatever was totally unreadable by Riku, who was thinking right about now that he didn’t know if wanted to barge in on two roommates who were clearly very good friends. It would just be awkward, no matter how nice the house was. Then again, he’d really do anything for cheap rent. “Do you want me to go?”

“No!” Both Sora and Naminé blurted out immediately, twin expressions of panic on their face. It was a little funny, though Riku managed to keep himself from laughing. Had to make a decent first impression. 

Sora added, “No, sorry, I was just expecting someone else!” He waved his hand around, and Riku caught a glimpse of a tattoo peeking out from under his shirt sleeve. “I’ve been doing extra hours at work; I’m just not fit for interacting with people right now.” He added a self-deprecating little laugh, which Riku could understand. 

“He’s usually way less spacey than this,” Naminé laughed, elbowing him. “Totally useless with no sleep. Let me show you the rest of the house, okay, so I can prove _I’m _at least normal!”

“Hey,” Sora protested weakly. Riku snorted. They were silly, and fun. Yes, Sora had seemed a little out of it, but not, like, weird or the sort of person who pulled the wings off flies or something. He just seemed vaguely ridiculous and sleep-deprived in the way most college students did. Riku had been there himself. He’d probably be there again in four months, when his classes started up again and he started to live on coffee alone.

“Okay,” Riku said to Naminé. “You’re, uh, getting paint in your hair.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh!” She reached out and pulled the paintbrush out. Her fingers were immediately coated green and her hair right above her ear was green too. She wiped her hands on her jeans and dropped the paintbrush on some papers spread across the dining room table with a clatter. “Well, whatever. This is the living room and - oh, this is Chirithy-” she scooped up the little gray cat who’d been looking at Riku curiously. He settled in, purring, as Naminé waved his little paw. “Do you like cats?”

Riku did. “Sure.” Then, because he wasn’t an asshole, he said, “Hi Chirithy.”

“Oh, good! The last person who came by was allergic. I felt so bad, she kept sneezing.”

“It was really bad,” Sora said, nodding. He wandered off towards the kitchen, clearly uninterested in the roommate tour. He lived here, so what did he need it for?

“That’s the kitchen, obviously,” Naminé said, pointing with her elbow, since Chirithy was still occupying all her arms. “Sora does most of the cooking and we pitch in for groceries, but you can totally wow us with your culinary skills too, if you want! The laundry is through there - we have a driveway, but I don’t have a car and Sora doesn’t have a license, so it’s all yours.”

“I _can_ drive, though, so don’t even-”

Naminé ignored him, leading Riku up the stairs. “And up here is where your room would be-”

It was just a really nice house. Even the empty room Riku would be taking - theoretically taking - was decently sized, even though Naminé kept apologizing that it was so small.

“I don’t have much,” Riku said because what he owned probably would barely fill the room anyways. 

“Great!” Naminé said, leading him back downstairs. Whatever Sora was cooking smelled delicious and as Naminé wandered by, he held out a spoon for her to try. She leaned over automatically, clearly used to this. “Oh, Sora, that’s good, what is that?”

“It’s a tomato soup, with meatballs,” Sora told her. “New recipe! Riku, do you want to try?”

Riku was caught off-guard by that; he hadn’t expected to be asked. “Uh, I’m good, thanks,” he said, because common sense told him not to accept food from strangers no matter how good it smelled or how kind Sora and Naminé seemed.

Sora slurped the soup out of the spoon he’d been offering to Riku anyways, so clearly, he hadn’t had poisoning on the brain. That was usually just Riku. “So, did you like the house?”

“It’s really nice,” Riku said truthfully. “But, uh -” god, he hated to bring it up, but Naminé hadn’t. She’d _written _about it in the damn Facebook post, but she and Sora seemed a little odd, but most people were a little odd. They definitely were not the sort of people who thought their house was definitely haunted. But he had to do his due diligence, or he’d probably end up in a cult. “You said you had a ghost?

Silence reigned for a moment, then Sora whined, “Nami, you said you weren’t going to put that in the post!”

“I lied,” Naminé said blithely. “Come on, Sora, you’re not _not _a ghost.”

Sora shot her an injured glance. “I’m not a ghost at all.”

Riku cut in before they could devolve into banter - it seemed clear that that was their style and this was a well-worn argument. “Sorry, the ghost is you? A real person?”

“Naminé is bullying me,” Sora said, poking her. She laughed and he poked her again as she went running around the kitchen island. “Just because I work nights! I still live here!” 

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but he’s really quiet about it,” Naminé added, which - well, Riku hadn’t been thinking it, but he already didn’t feel like the words ‘quiet’ and ‘Sora’ went together.

“That’s a relief,” Riku said, because truly, it was. The house was nice, he’d hate to not take it and the ridiculously cheap rent because of astrology. And he’d also have hated to end up used a sacrificial ritual. “I thought you guys were just, like, really into Ouija boards and would kick me out if I was a Gemini or something.”

“No!” Naminé said, then added, laughing, “Well, _are _you?”

Riku found himself laughing too. He’d already been planning on giving Naminé his number, but that cinched it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d just been able to laugh and joke like this, let alone about something as stupid and unimportant as astrology and ghosts. He wasn’t someone who made friends easily, and he’d barely known them twenty minutes before he was laughing with them.

So he gave Naminé his number and said he’d call her tomorrow with his decision.

Naminé and Sora both waved him off the door. 

He wanted to wait to make the decision, _truly _make it, tonight, in case the house was so charming and clean that he was ignoring any red lights on the occupants. It’s only common sense, but - well, Riku was a pretty good judge of character and he hadn’t noticed anything wrong. 

Usually, when he met first people, he’d known instantly, by a little bar of anxiety and anger tightening in his chest. He’d known it when he’d met his first roommate junior year and he’d had to ignore it, because the rent was so cheap. He’d known it when he met his uncle for the first time and realized he was absolutely, completely drunk at family dinner and had only come to borrow money again.

He’d known that he’d refused to know it, when he was fourteen and his dad left.

But the only thing he’d felt in the little house was warmth, warmth like he couldn’t describe and couldn’t remembering ever actively knowing, but he knew he’d felt it before, like a little sun burning comfortable in place of his heart.

He liked Sora and Naminé, who had an easy friendship and seemed more than happy to let him into it, for all they’d laughed and chatted with him. There was something comfortable about it all. It seemed ridiculous to want to move into a place just for how at ease the possible roommates made him feel, but then it wasn’t ridiculous to _not _move into a place because you hated the roommates. Good roommates would greatly improve his quality of life. His last ones had sucked and Riku hated to admit it, but - he didn’t have many other friends at his last college, and he didn’t have any friends going into this one.

He spent the entire drive back to Destiny Islands contemplating that. By the time he arrived, his decision was made.

\-----

He moved in just a week later, the third week of May. He’d told his mother it was because he wanted to get his bearings in a new city and a new university, and it was true, having all of summer to settle in was a nice luxury, but the truth was that he hadn’t wanted to spend the summer in Destiny Islands. For the entire four years he’d been at college, he’d been able to avoid going home. And, successfully, he was only back for a week and half after graduation before driving up to Radiant Gardens to see the house. 

It wasn’t that being at home was bad. It just made Riku unbearably sad, for reasons he couldn’t place. Every time he walked through town, his chest ached like he was missing something. He didn’t know what - he didn’t really have any friends from high school to visit, let alone miss. The town was just small, so small that Riku felt smothered, like he couldn’t breathe without a weigh on his chest sometimes. Like he was breathing in smog, suffocating, instead of tasting the salty, fresh island air.

He’d been really happy growing up there. He had wanted to leave by the time college rolled around, and he had, but he hadn’t been happy to leave. But he also couldn’t imagine returning to this town and staying and being happy either.

He was happier in the little house, moving all his boxes in with Chirithy making himself a loveable nuisance and trying to trip him up.

The first couple of weeks, honestly, Riku lived like a heathen. His mother would be absolutely ashamed of him. He unpacked just enough clothing to wear and his sheets, content to just stumble around nearly stepping on boxes and doing this ridiculous dance that Sora had caught him at once and laughed at him for.

“You could unpack, you know.” 

“I have all summer to do that,” Riku pointed out. He was sitting in his desk chair, with a small hunk of wood in his hand and a knife. The wood had the beginnings of a little bird head carved out of it, though admittedly the wood shavings on the ground probably weren’t helping the cleanliness. Across the hall, Sora’s door stood open, and it looked messy just for the sake of being messy, so Sora really didn’t have a foot to stand on here.

Sora snorted instead of commenting on the fact that Riku was an old man who liked to carve things to relax. His old roommates have made fun of him endlessly for it, because none of them were from Destiny Islands and none of them understood how carving driftwood was a local tradition, and none of them cared. “Great! Come downstairs, then!”

“Why?”

Sora looked puzzled at his question. “Naminé and I want to watch the Cheetah Girls.”

Riku definitely didn’t want to barge in. “I’ll pass. It’s not my thing.” He wasn’t sure he’d even seen it and he was perfectly content letting that remain the case.

“Nope, you have to, it’s roommate bonding,” Sora said cheerfully, and he reached out, pulled the wood from Riku’s hand quick as you please, then the knife, and put them on the desk. Once Riku’s hands were free, Sora happily pulled him by the wrist down the stairs, his hand hot against Riku’s cool skin. “Nami, you can start it!”

Sora planted himself right next to Riku on the couch, singing along to all the words. If he hadn’t been singing at the top of his lungs, he’d probably have been a great singer. Riku knew a surprisingly amount of them too, even though he couldn’t imagine how he’d seen the Cheetah Girls before. And then they’d watched the second one, too, because_ how would we stop at just one, Riku?_ Naminé kept quoting along to all the scenes, and Sora kept hopping up and down to get popcorn and various snacks. When he was settled, he took over the couch, clearly not caring about couch boundaries with people who were essentially strangers, so Riku tried not to be hyper aware of him. It only halfway worked, he spent half the movie watching Sora out of the corner of his eye, but he was just so _vibrant_. Riku didn’t know how anyone could possibly avoid staring right at him when he entered a room.

Despite all that, and despite the fact that Sora nearly winged him in the head clambering over the back of the couch for snacks, Riku … actually had a really good time.

“Oh, I love those movies,” Naminé said happily, standing up and stretching. She padded over to the sliding door and opened it, letting in a blast of warm air as she stepped into the backyard. Sora gathered up bowls and moved to the kitchen, clinking noises and the dishwasher running telling Riku that he was cleaning up.

Riku sat in the dark for a minute. He’d laughed more than he had in a long while, his chest felt comfortable full and warm.

“Riku, catch!”

Riku put his hand up automatically and Sora tossed a _bottle _at him.

“Sora!” Riku yelped right as it smacked into his palm. A bottle of beer. A dang _beer_. His heart was racing. “Give a guy some warning!”

“What, I _said _catch!” Sora called, popping the top of his own beer and another, leaving both bottles caps face-up on the counter, where they’d probably remain until Riku got fed up with them and put them in the recycling. Sora took both beers out onto the porch and passed on to Naminé. “And you did!”

“I - yeah, but what if I hadn’t?”

“Then I would have gotten out the mop,” Sora replied, dropping onto the step below Naminé and sprawling out so that his shoulders touched the top step and his feet brushed the dirt.

Naminé took a prim sip. “You said you’d make sangria next time.”

“I did not have fruit.” Riku looked at his own beer and the two of them, heads bent together, and felt a little lost. As if sensing this, they’d both turned to look at him, Sora gesturing him closer. “Come _on_, Riku, let’s look at the moon! It’s full tonight!”

Riku looked up. It _was _full. He looked down, at Naminé and Sora, expectantly waiting for him, and he set down on the top step too, just to Naminé’s left. 

It shouldn’t feel this heavy, this good, to share a beer with his roommates on a summer night after watching silly kids movies, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done anything like this. He hadn’t really made a lot of friends in college, or at least no one he was close to. There were a couple of people who would sometimes drag him to parties he didn’t want to go, and there were a couple of people he always had the same classes and study groups with. But already Naminé and Sora were so much more willing to listen to him and draw him into conversation and just - sit with him, drinking a beer.

It was nice. It was really nice just to relax, the way Riku felt like he hadn’t been able to in a long time. 

\-----

Eventually, the room was unpacked and the boxes folded up and stacked under Riku’s bed. He hung up his clothes in the closet and began to think of the room as his - just the room, at first, but then Naminé and Sora kept making him come down for dinner and joining their movie nights. They clearly wanted him to feel comfortable, because Riku had mentioned that the mirror in the hallway, the one Naminé always trailed a hand over the glass of, totally creeped him out, and Sora moved it into Naminé’s room the next day. 

He put his own food in the cabinets they had cleared out for him, though Sora still cooked dinner almost every night and that was honestly ridiculously good, so much that making pasta or chicken on his own was just subpar. He got comfortable leaving his books out on the dining room table, which was so big and expansive that half of it functioned as Sora’s office, where he’d have organized receipts and pay stubs and other crap, and the other half was where they could actually eat.

He got really _really _comfortable. Not just in the house, but with Sora and Naminé. It wasn’t just the house that he thought of as his, but slowly, surprisingly easily, them too. 

Though he kept having nightmares. He never slept well in a new place. Eventually, he’d settle in, and things would be fine, but he hadn’t yet. It wasn’t a new nightmare, he’d had it before, on nights when he felt particularly lonely.

It always was the same. His limbs were heavy, like he was swimming underwater and he was tired and unable to hold himself up. He wasn’t in control of his own body, at all. He’d call out for people to hear him, but no one looked his way, either unable or unwilling to. Slowly he just become unable to move his own body, until something else took it over, controlling him, while he was just alone.

He jerked awake, sweating, but for a panicked second, he couldn’t get his limbs to work, he couldn’t throw the cover off and it just pressed him into the mattress, burning hot. When he had control again, he practically fell out of bed, stumbling downstairs, hoping Sora would be there.

Without fail, every morning, Sora had been downstairs. He went out for work at all hours of the night, and while usually Riku would hear him leave, he didn’t always hear him come back. Sometimes Riku was awake from nightmares and the soft click of the lock and the barest hint of light under his door soothed him enough, let him know he wasn’t alone, so that he could fall back asleep. But no matter how late Sora got back, he was always an obnoxious early bird, ready to make breakfast or tend to his vegetable garden before it got too hot or watch shitty reality tv. Somehow, he always convinced Riku to watch too, and they sit together for hours, long past when Riku’s cereal bowl was empty.

Except for this morning, apparently.

Sora was passed out on the couch, looking for all the world like he’d just come in and collapsed. He was slouched down, arms crossed, and his baseball cap with still on, the brim low over his eyes. Riku nearly tripped over his backpack lying behind the couch, then leaned over it to see if Sora was really asleep.

And he did seem to be. He slept _incredibly _quietly, Riku wouldn’t have expected that of him.

He’d never seen Sora asleep before. He looked very young when he was asleep.

Riku checked the microwave clock in the kitchen – he was earlier than normal, more often than not it’d be afternoon before he woke up, but there was always evidence that Sora had been up for _hours _when he finally slouched downstairs. 

Riku the box of cereal out of what Naminé and Sora called his cabinet, the one they’d cleaned out specifically for him when he’d moved in. He got water. He turned back around and Sora was sitting up, peering at him over the back of the couch. 

Sora raised a hand. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Riku mumbled, feeling weirdly ashamed. It wasn’t that weird to be in the kitchen while your roommate slept in the adjacent room. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” Sora yawned. He was probably the only person in the world who could yawn and grin at the same time, but trust Sora to do it. “You just have really strong energy.”

Whatever that meant. “Uh, sure.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Sora said, slouching back down. “Just - means I should do my wards again.”

Riku looked up at the ceiling despairingly for a second. He spent so much time in this very kitchen actively choosing not to question what Sora said. He’d opened the fridge yesterday and found several jars full of gross looking liquids, all with labels like DO NOT USE! FOR MOON MONDAY! And PURIFIED FROM LAKE FOR TURNER HOUSE.

People did weird shit in their homes, Riku wouldn’t question that. His last roommates had laughed at him endlessly for his protein shakes, and there’d been one dude in his college dorm who just refused to wear a shirt if he was inside their room.

Riku didn’t feel inclined to ask what Moon Monday was. Whatever weird drugs they were into, he didn’t want to know. His last roommate had been growing weed in his bedroom for _months_, so Riku was pretty confident that in this case, ignorance was absolutely bliss. 

For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what kind of drug ‘purified lake water’ was, anyways.

Riku shook his head and got the milk from the fridge for his cereal. The Moon Monday ‘juice’ was still in there, though the purified lake water was gone. “What time did you get in last night?”

He saw a flash of Sora’s arm as he lifted it to look at his watch. “Uh, like - an hour ago.”

Riku shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Oh, like you’re not awake too,” Sora scoffed, hanging his arms over the back of the couch. The silver chain of his neck was caught over his ear, the crown tapping against his cheek, but he seemed more concerned with making grabby motions at Riku. Riku obligingly got out a second bowl for the cereal and brought the box over for him, settling onto the couch next to him. Sora politely pulled up his feet to make room. “Not to be mean, but you kinda look like shit, Riku.”

“Thanks a lot.” Though it was kind of nice that he was so matter of fact about it. Riku hadn’t looked in the mirror this morning, but he probably _did _look like shit. “I keep having these dreams where - I don’t know. I was drowning, I think, but no one could hear me. And I couldn’t control my body. Usually I don’t remember my dreams and -” Riku cut himself off, embarrassed that somehow he’d become the sort of person who _told people about his dreams_. He actively tried _not _to be that person.

Sora gaped at him. “Riku, that’s so sad.” Alarmingly, tears were starting to well up in his eyes.

“You don’t have to cry about it!” Riku said. He wrapped his hands around his cereal bowl because if he didn’t, he was going to do something like reach out and try to comfort Sora, and he was _bad_ at comforting people. It was always just awkward and hellish for the both of them. “It’s just a weird recurring nightmare, I get them all the time! I’ve just been having them a lot lately because I’m in a new place - Sora, _please _stop crying-”

“Sorry,” Sora sobbed, pressing at his eyes with the palm of his hands like that would help. “Sorry, I’m always really emotional when I don’t get enough sleep and everyone says I’m a crybaby anyways but you just looked so _sad_, Riku.”

“I don’t think I’m as sad about it as you are right now,” Riku said, totally baffled. 

“I just get really bad nightmares too,” Sora said, hiccupping. His face was all red and snotty, but unfortunately it was a pretty cute look on him. He could probably rock a paper bag if he had to, which was very very unfair. “I can make you some tea tonight, if you want. It has elderberries in it, it helps with bad dreams.”

“I - yeah, okay,” Riku said. Because Sora looked really earnest and he wasn’t a tea person, but - god, he was just so tired. And he really wanted Sora to stop crying.

His sleep that night was deep, uninterrupted, and empty. After that, he didn’t have any bad dreams at all. He must have finally settled in, gotten comfortable in this house. Maybe the tea did help after all.

\-----

Trust Sora to throw a wrench right into Riku’s tentative comfort and peace in the new house before classes had even _started. _Riku was beginning to believe that Sora could not be contained, tampered down, or dissuaded from anything, and Sora proved him right in late July, when he came home covered in blood and leaning on a girl with black hair. The girl was supporting him very carefully, but she was too small to really do a good job of it and Sora was making it more difficult by also _texting_. “Hey, Riku.”

Riku looked up at them, took in the blood on Sora’s shirt, and leapt off the couch, abandoning his carving to carefully slide his arm around Sora’s other side and help him. His heart was going double-time, triple-time, he could actively feel the adrenaline kicking in, and despite how cavalier Sora sounded, it looked like the same for him - he was panting and flushed, his hands burning hot to the touch. “What the _fuck_.”

“I cut my hand, don’t worry, it’s small!” Sora tossed his phone on the couch as he steered them all towards the kitchen. Riku wasn’t sure what to in this situation at all, except possibly drive them to the hospital for stitches, because despite what Sora said, there was _way_ too much blood for a cut that just needed a band-aid slapped on it. Sora winced as he was deposited in the kitchen too, leaning against the counter to keep himself upright. “Would you help me get this off?”

Riku helped him carefully peel off the jacket, wincing in tandem with Sora every time he winced. This was exactly why you shouldn’t think your roommate with no regard for personal safety was hot. Underneath the jacket, Sora’s shoulder and upper arm was an angry alarming burn, clearly visible because his shirt sleeve was also burnt off. “Oh my god.”

“It’s fine,” Sora said, though he was swaying a little bit. The burn didn’t look extremely bad - not that Riku was any sort of expert, but Sora didn’t seem to be in too much pain, at least - but it was an angry mottled purple-black, almost viscous like an oil slick, and unlike any burn Riku had seen before. The wound was trailing down his shoulder and around his bicep like something had - had _grabbed _him. “Riku, have you met Xion?”

“Hi.” The girl wiped blood off her hands on her worn jeans then held it out. “I’m Naminé’s girlfriend.”

Riku shook it, distantly aware that this was an absolutely wild thing to do while Sora was about to pass out in their kitchen. “Uh, hi.” He was proud of how much his voice didn’t shake. Considering the circumstances, he sounded like he did well under pressure, no matter how fast his heart was beating, which was great, since he wanted to convey that he wasn’t out of his mind when he asked, “Sora, do you need me to drive you to the hospital?”

“No, I’m good-”

“You’re _not_-”

Behind them, Naminé said, “Riku, help him up onto the counter.”

Naminé was authoritative when she wanted to be, which is why Riku actually did it. He was settling Sora up there, carefully, his hands on Sora’s narrow waist before he realized what he was actually doing. Like this, they were the same height, nose to nose, but then Sora leaned around Riku a little bit to see Naminé, who reached over and brutally cut off his shirt with a pair of sewing scissors, right through the little faded ice cream shop logo. “Aw, man, Nami, I really liked this shirt.”

“The sleeve is already gone, idiot,” Riku said automatically, before remembering _wait, oh yeah, he should be going to the hospital, what the hell are we doing_?

“Suns out, guns out,” Sora said, like Riku was supposed to understand whatever _that_ meant.

Naminé let out a breath as she inspected the black-purple burn. Riku personally tried not to gag while she carefully rotated Sora’s arm; Sora making a pained face all the while. He didn’t say anything though, just let Naminé examine it. “It’ll need to be purified. Xion, in the fridge there’s some-”

Xion was already moving around the counter. “I’ll get the thread, too.”

Riku looked at the three of them. They were all absolutely insane - was _Xion_ going to sew up his hand? “He should really go to the _hospital_.”

“I’m a veterinary student,” Xion offered, which made Sora throw back his head and laugh, so bright despite the circumstances.

“No offense, but I did mean like an actual doctor.”

Xion looked at Naminé, who looked at Sora, who shrugged. Not for the first time, Riku cursed the fact that they were such good friends, able to clearly know what each other meant with just a glance. This was the sort of situation where they should really be saying _words_. Words would be really calming right about now, in a way that deeps breaths were _not_ working to calm Riku down the way they were supposed to.

“I think it’s too late to talk our way out of this one,” Sora said to Naminé, who groaned and started pulling jars and containers out of one of the cabinets Riku never looked in and started dumping them into a mixing bowl she grabbed from the drying rack. Sora had used it to mix cookie dough just last night. “Riku, it’s a spirit burn, so the hospital can’t treat it.”

Riku blinked. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Naminé cutting leaves off the aloe vera plant that lived in a planter on the windowsill and toss that into the mixing bowl as well. “A - _what_?”

“I was burned by a spirit,” Sora said. He accepted the glass Xion passed him, something bright orange. She’d thoughtfully included a straw, since both Sora’s hands weren’t really functioning, but he ignored it and threw it back with the burned arm anyways. It made Riku realize how close he was standing to Sora, right between his legs, and he hastily took a step back.

“Hand out,” Xion said, and she really had a needle in her hand with - Riku _hoped_ \- was surgical thread. He didn’t have a ton of hope, though. She passed Sora a granola bar. “And eat this.”

Sora held out his arm and let the washcloth from it fall. Xion swooped in, focused on her work. She at least seemed like she knew what she was doing, though Riku didn’t focus on it for too long, unable to really stomach needle going through flesh in these trying times. Instead, he watched Naminé, continuing to mix whatever the hell it was she was making. Whatever it was, it was a dark sludgy brown. Riku didn’t really think it was chocolate chip cookies.

Naminé held her hand over the mixing bowl for a second and Riku _swore_ he could see it glowing faintly green for just a second. He couldn’t be sure his eyes weren’t tricking him, with the bright kitchen lights in the way, but he _was_ sure that when she took her hand away, the mixture was a glowing bright green completely removed from what it had been earlier. 

Naminé stepped close to Sora, both her and Xion stepping around each other in perfect tandem, and starting dipping the bandages in the bright green paste. She lay them carefully over Sora’s shoulder, pressing them against his skin gently, and wrapped them around his bicep. They let up a bit of steam as they soaked into the burns, hissing, but Sora didn’t wince once. Maybe he was used to it.

Did they do this a lot? Patching Sora up? He did have a lot of scars littered around his body - the faint scar at his temple, the jagged lines that crisscrossed the fingers on his left hand, the white spidery imprint just above his heart. Maybe the three of them were here all the time, patching each other up on this kitchen counter. Naminé had been so prepared - whatever mixture she’d made, she hadn’t needed measurements or a recipe for, she just knew. Even Chirithy seemed aware, sitting on one of the empty barstools and watching them all with narrowed eyes, tail twitching like he’d personally enact revenge if they didn’t patch Sora up right.

He watched them for however long it took. The stitches didn’t seem to faze Xion, she finished them off quickly and wrapped a clean stark white bandage around it, then joined Naminé, dipping her fingers in the mixture and pulled bandages out for Sora’s upper arm. She and Naminé were murmuring at each other, things Riku didn’t hear well and probably wouldn’t be able to understand. Sora just kept looking at him, though his eyes kept slipping shut.

“Riku?”

Riku jerked, coming back into awareness. “Uh, yeah,” he said stupidly. Naminé’s hand was freezing cold on his wrist. Stupidly, Riku thought it was the first time she’d really touched him. “Sorry, Naminé, I was - I was thinking.”

“I gave Sora a painkiller.” She gave him a soft, tired smile. It was late. The red numbers on the microwave said it was nearly two in the morning. “He should be alright if he rests. Would you help us take Sora to his room?”

Sora was listing to the side, eyes shut. They’d wrapped plastic wrap around his bandages, probably to stop getting the paste everywhere, and there was enough of it that Sora’s arm couldn’t really sit naturally against his chest. Riku gulped. “Are you - you’re done?”

“Yes.”

Riku reached out and carefully, so carefully, slid Sora off the counter. Sora was so out of it that he didn’t really respond, so Naminé carefully arranged Sora’s hand and shoulder so that Riku wouldn’t jostle him. His good shoulder was against Riku’s chest and he was burning up, Riku could feel that through his shirt, but his eyes were closed - he’d probably be too out of it to notice if Riku dropped him, never mind accidentally straining his shoulder farther.

He had no idea how Xion and Naminé would have managed to get Sora up the stairs if they’d done this before, especially if Chirithy was making a nuisance out of himself like he was now, twining around Riku’s foot with every step until Xion scooped him up. Maybe they’d just had to bring him to the couch.

Naminé opened the door for him, turned on the lamp so Riku wouldn’t trip. “Thanks, Riku,” she said as Riku settled him into bed. Sora didn’t curl up like he normally did on the couch. He just lay there, almost deathly still, his hand carefully laid out. Chirithy wiggled out of Xion’s arms and raced for the bed, barely avoiding Riku’s feet, and hopped up. Usually he’d be right on Sora’s chest, but he must know that wasn’t a good idea tonight, because he curled carefully into a little circle near Sora’s hip. Naminé scratched his head absently, looking at Riku instead of him or Sora. “Are you - are you going to sit with him?”

Of course Riku was. “Yeah.”

“Okay then,” Naminé said. She surprised him with a kiss to his cheek, then disappeared out the door, closing it behind her with a soft _click_. Riku pressed a hand to his cheek almost in shock - he had never been friends with touchy-feely people, partially because he wasn’t good at making friends, and partially because he wasn’t the sort of person who initiated touch himself, and Naminé had followed that trend. Neither she or Riku were the type to expression their emotions through physical contact. Maybe it was why they both gravitated to Sora so much, since he’d probably laid his comforting hands on Riku a thousand times in the past week alone and Riku had welcomed it. And now Naminé, too, had done it twice in one evening. He must have passed some sort of test. 

It wasn’t every day your two roommates who you generally thought were pretty fun and sane people told you about spirits while having weird demonic burns on their shoulders that they refused to go to the hospital for. He must have been cool enough about it.

Spirits. Weird poultices. Witches, maybe. His mother had sometimes talked about witches, when she was tired and Riku was just a kid and weird things were happening. When his dreams were especially vivid, which they always were. When the sun hit the sea just right. When she’d see something from the corner of her eye and wouldn’t explain what. She’d just laugh and say _what an old-fashioned term. It’s so much bigger than that. Riku, you’ll know one day_. Riku used to think she herself was a witch, maybe, but she never said that much more about it, no matter what she saw from the corner of her eyes.

Riku sagged into the worn armchair by Sora’s bed - he’d never seen Sora sit in it. He usually preferred to sprawl out on the rug, where a patch of sunlight would hit in the afternoon. Was the chair there for just this occasion? For Naminé to sit and hold his hand and wish him well and work healing magic?

There wasn’t anything particularly witchy in Sora’s room, though Riku was mostly going on what he’d read and seen in ridiculous, campy TV shows. But it was just a room. A little full of old-fashioned furniture for a house that belonged to a couple of twenty-three-year old college students, but Sora was kind of odd like that. There was a large standing mirror that Riku could see himself in, looking startlingly calm for the entire situation, though there _were_ dark circles under his eyes. There were a lot of candles, and a lot of scattered pieces of paper with notes and drawings on them.

On the back of the door, though, there were beautiful circular drawings. It looked like they’d been done in chalk, over and over. The whole door was covered with them, beautiful patterns curving over the wood.

He looked back down at Sora, at his plastic-wrapped arm. He could see the green paste bleeding through the bandages, and the way it was fogging up the plastic wrap. He’d _seen_ Naminé turn it into this. He touched a finger to Sora’s uninjured bicep, following the dark but intricate lines of the tattoo there, lines that looked ancient and _magical_.

God. He wanted to believe otherwise, but he really was just sharing a house with two witches, wasn’t he. He put his head in his hands. “Oh my god.”

He fell asleep there, in the arm chair, straining for the almost imperceptible sound of Sora breathing, even if Naminé had promised he’d be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

Sora’s soft voice woke him. “Riku?”

Riku groaned. “It’s too early.” He pried open his eyes. It was glaringly bright in the room, because Riku hadn’t closed the curtains last night, on account of having a minor crisis, so he immediately shut them again.

“It’s almost noon. Did you sleep there?”

“Where?” Riku mumbled. He was too tired to be bothered by Sora’s snickering, but - wait, he was sitting in a chair, and his neck _ached_. “Oh my god, I did sleep here.” He sat up and winced as he tried to look to the left. His neck really didn’t want to cooperate.

“You look like shit.”

“Back at ya.” He reached over and pulled the heavy curtain shut. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Sora said, and he mostly looked it, too, now that Riku could see him without his eyes burning. He looked alive. If not for the bandages around his right hand and left shoulder, he’d look completely normal. “Uh-oh, that’s an unhappy face. I’m in trouble, aren’t I.”

“I - _no_,” Riku said, because Sora’s tone of voice was light and joking, and if you didn’t look too closely, so was his face, but Riku could see just a hint of worry, of distress lurking in his blue eyes. Riku wanted to get rid of that. “I mean, absolutely, because you _scared_ me. Do you do this often? Get spiritually injured, or whatever, and scare everyone to death?”

“I’d have gone to the hospital if it were _really _serious,” Sora protested, like a liar. He shifted a little bit and Chirithy meowed at him before curling up in a circle that was almost exactly the same as where he had been, tucked a little tighter into the crook of Sora’s good arm.

Like hell Riku would believe that. “You really wanna say that to me when you can’t even sit up?”

Instead of trying to prove him wrong, which Riku expected he’d do, Sora just went quiet in a way that was frankly almost as scary as seeing him come in the door last night with blood all over his shirt. Sora didn’t really do quiet, and every time he did, Riku felt like he’d just missed something startlingly important but had no way of comprehending. It was unsettling. “I guess that’s true.”

“Don’t _agree_ with me, I’m mad.”

“Yeah,” Sora agreed. He was clearly trying to sound upbeat, but he was clearly sad and pretending just made it worse. He wouldn’t look up at Riku at all. “Sorry for hiding it, Riku. Nami and I will totally understand if you want to move out -”

Riku blinked. “What?”

“It’s really fine, Riku.”

“I’m not moving _out_,” Riku said. “Why - why would I even do that?”

“It’s - people don’t like - it’s scary to live with us.”

Riku frowned, the misunderstanding becoming clear in his mind. “I’m not mad about _that._” He leaned forward so Sora _had_ to look him in the eye. “I’m mad you got hurt and then insisted on scaring me half to death! I don’t even know if I believe the witch thing, anyway.”

Sora gave him a weak grin. “Well, usually I snap my fingers and summon up some magical fire, but I’m kinda out of commission. I can read your palm if you want.” Instinctively, Riku shut his hand. The flicker of sadness in Sora’s eyes reappeared for a fleeting second before it was hidden with a smile. “It was a joke, Riku.”

“I knew that.” He didn’t know if he did. He’d shut his hand. He hadn’t thought about it, really, but Sora was right. Maybe it was scary to live with them; he didn’t know what they were capable of. The chalk on Sora’s door and the herbs that Naminé had used - they knew what they were doing. They were doing dangerous things, if Sora had burns like this. He couldn’t very well just not believe them, because _something_ had done that to Sora and he couldn’t think of a natural cause that would burn his skin purple like that.

It would be _so _easy not to believe them. Just pass them off as weirdos who were too into Wicca or new-age herbalism or whatever it was and didn’t have an ounce of magic in them. Riku was sure he could do it. He could stay in his room and never eat Sora’s cooking again and it would just be a place to live, instead of - his home. He’d pretend he never saw the orange sedative or the way Naminé’s salve had turned bright green on its own. Riku was good at ignoring things.

But sitting here, Riku could practically feel it. He could feel it yesterday, too. The heaviness in the air, the slight feeling of static, like lightning was about to defy God and strike indoors without a thunderstorm. Maybe that was magic or spirits. Maybe it was just the tension between Riku and Sora as they looked at each other.

It did feel a little dangerous.

Sora turned his face away again. He probably knew exactly what Riku was thinking, Riku had never been good at hiding his emotions. “It’s fine, Riku,” he said gently. “Just don’t tell anyone?”

“I’m not moving _out_,” Riku said again. He liked the little house. “Even if you can do magic, so what? I don’t really think you were, like, legally obligated to tell me or anything. Like that wasn’t on the lease. It’s not like you’re murdering people or smoking in my face or whatever.”

Sora stared at him. “I - yeah, no, I’m not murdering people,” he said. “Or smoking. I mean, I hope I’m saving their lives.”

“If you’re not hurting anyone, then I don’t see how it’s any of my business if you’re a witch or whatever,” Riku said firmly, because it was kind of scary, of course it was, but this was Sora. Sora who cooked them all dinner and Sora who liked to garden and Sora who only watched shitty reality television or rom-coms and cried at them even when they had happy endings. And Naminé who got paint in her hair and couldn’t cook to save her life and cheerfully teased Sora about how he talked to his vegetable plants.

He hadn’t thought they were dangerous until just now, when Sora was stupidly trying to convince him that they were. He couldn’t imagine either of them doing something to harm him, unless it was Sora using a straw so that he could lay down and look at the stars while drinking beer, which was just emotionally distressing. He’d always trusted his gut instinct and he saw no reason not to do that now. He hadn’t felt this way when they’d been on a run and Sora had told him he’d done five years of boxing - he’d just felt a little exhilarated, and that was dangerous too.

No. His immediate thought had been helping Sora, nothing else, and he’d trust that.

Sora looked astonished. Riku didn’t like that, either. How many people had moved in and moved out just a few months later after finding out things they didn’t like? “Riku-”

Riku held his hand up. “Don’t make a big deal out of it, I just really like the house, okay? And I think Chirithy would miss me.”

Chirithy lifted his head, eyes narrowed, as if letting Riku know _exactly_ how much he would not miss him.

“Okay,” Sora agreed happily, clearly seeing right through Riku’s lie. His hand without stitches reached out for Riku’s, hesitating for a second. Riku opened up his closed hand and allowed Sora to hold it. The smile Sora had made it worth it.

\-----

Riku was sure that Naminé, Xion, and Sora would get annoyed by him asking so many questions about magic all the time. That’s just what people did, naturally, if you were annoying, but so far, they hadn’t. Naminé was bad at explaining it, but a soft smiling always appeared on her face when Riku asked a question. Riku thought it was because she was tired of hiding it all the time, and it was probably really nice to just have someone new to talk about it with. Xion actually would light up at the chance to talk about it, which was good, because now that classes were starting up, she was around a lot more often. She had a key and everything. Apparently, she’d been in Twilight Town for the summer.

Sora was the best at explaining magic to Riku because he just explained how it all _felt_, instead of what it actually meant. He didn’t care about his place in the magical universe so much as his place, here, in this town, on this earth, on this street. “It’s like - the earth has a lot of natural energy, sometimes things we can’t even explain. Just a bit of magic. Spirits, and demons. Just existing, mostly unable to be seen by humans.”

It made probably as much sense as anything would. Feeling it would just have to be enough. Riku had been trying to hone his sense for it, since Naminé had said he’d probably be able to know that he knew it existed, but so far, he’d only accurately been able to feel anything when he was at home, in the company of people he already knew had power.

“Is magic just _everywhere_? Is that why your cooking tastes so good?”

Sora let out a startled sort of squawk. “_No_, that’s natural ability!” He popped a cherry in his mouth. They were in the kitchen; Sora cooking. His arm was in a sling, knotted neatly at the shoulder, but Riku had seen the burns when he’d helped change the bandages, and they were still angry even if they were healing. Naminé had figured that Sora would regain full use of his arm, but she also had said some of the burns on his bicep would probably turn to scars. Sora didn’t seem that put off by it. He already had a lot, and he’d told Riku that most of them weren’t, in fact, from any sort of spiritual encounters. The one on his temple was actually from skateboarding. “But yes, magic is kind of everywhere. Just not for most people, I guess?”

Sora kept doing this thing where he’d share a little bit about magic then stop, like he was checking to see if Riku was still interested or if he was scared. Riku had to keep prompting him to keep going. “What do you mean?”

“Stop carving and stir this, okay?” Sora passed the bowl to Riku, who obligingly put down his hunk of wood and got started slowly chopping vegetables. “It’s just like - oh, it’s like when you put on 3D glasses, kinda, and you can see everything fully? Before it was just flat but then you put on the glasses and bam, it’s like a whole new world! The spirit world and the human world just overlap, that’s all! Does that make sense?”

“A little bit.” Riku focused on mixing whatever was in the bowl. If Sora couldn’t explain it, he couldn’t explain it. But maybe… “I - can you just show me?”

The surprised look on Sora’s face was something to savor. “I - you sure? It’s kind of a lot.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay then, tomorrow!”

“You aren’t _supposed to go outside yet!”_ It was Naminé’s law, but Riku was fussing too, and more than happy to follow it. Sora’s burns still looked worryingly bad, even if they were lightening to red instead of purple-black.

“Riku, it’s been two weeks,” Sora whined, waving the knife around with his good hand. Of course he didn’t seem to be in pain at all. He must have an incredibly high pain threshold if this didn’t bother him. Then again, he was keeping his bad arm tucked close to his chest, keeping it safe and still. But even if he was, it was _still_ coated in burns. “I’m going crazy cooped up in here!”

Riku should have known Sora would easily wear him down. That’s how they found themselves walking down the sidewalk the next morning. Two weeks inside was enough to make anyone stir-crazy, and Sora had actually obeyed Naminé, too, which Riku didn’t know if he could have done. He relied too much on his early morning run to shake out his anxieties, but the past two weeks he’d been running alone, instead of taking the jogging path through the park with Sora like he’d fallen into the habit of doing every morning at six.

He half-expected Sora to try and join him after a few days, pretending to be all fine, but surprisingly, Sora wasn’t a bad patient. Riku didn’t ask, but he took it to mean that Sora had simply been in this position enough times to have learned to accept it.

He didn’t particularly like the thought.

From what Naminé had said, after Sora had fallen asleep again that first morning, it _was _common. She’d been sitting on the kitchen table, scrolling aimlessly through her phone with green-stained fingers - this time from magical salve, not paint. The remnants of last night's problem had all been removed; the bowl was clean in the drying rack and all the jars all put away. Even the counter had been wiped down. The cut-off leaves on the aloe were the only clue that something had been wrong. 

She looked up at him, purple circles under her eyes, shoulders tight with stress, so Riku opened his mouth before she could say anything. “I already told Sora I’m not moving out and I don’t even know if I believe you’re witches and frankly, I might just be in shock, but - I’m not moving out.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Naminé said after a second. “You like us too much. But we are witches.”

“Yeah,” Riku said, slumping into the kitchen chair besides her. He chose the one across from her purely because if he’d sat in his customary space next to her, his aching neck would have prevented him from actually being able to look her in the face. “Yeah.”

“How’s Sora?”

Riku wondered how long she’d known Sora. They were close, but before this, Riku had always chalked it up to being roommates and best friends. Sora didn’t go to college, so they wouldn’t have met on campus. Maybe they’d been able to find each other through some sort of witch radar. Maybe they’d learned about it together. Either way, Riku knew the trust and bond that ran through them was deeper than he could imagine, especially now that he knew all this.

Riku didn’t ask. It didn’t seem like the time. Hopefully he’d be able to later. “He woke up,” Riku grumbled, messaging his neck to try and work the kinks out. It was also a little hard to look down at his cereal bowl. “Very lucid and chipper for a guy who had his arm burnt off last night.”

“That’s good.” Naminé tilted her head, eying him. Riku paused, his hand going still under the scrutiny. “Not unexpected, Sora’s always bounced back very easily. Probably why he keeps getting into trouble. Do you mind if I -” she held her hand out and wiggled her green fingers.

“Uh, sure,” Riku said cautiously, only a little bit sure to what he was agreeing to.

She placed her cold hand on the side of his neck. There was a bright glow and then a cold freezing sensation slid down his spine, making him gasp and shiver. When she removed her hand, the pain and the cold disappeared, leaving only a taste of mint on his tongue. She did look slightly more tired though. A little paler.

Riku moved his head from side to side experimentally. “That was amazing,” he said, because the only other thing he could say would probably be _magic magic magic that was magic she did magic magic magic_, and he’d kind of already been there. He just - here was the real, tangible proof. Not just a feeling or something he thought he might have seen while it was dark and late at night. “Why didn’t you do that last night?”

Naminé shook her head. “Sora’s burn needed to be purified,” she said. “If it had just been the stitches, I could have. But the burn was sapping his strength. It had - hmm. Spiritual energy wrapped within it. Demonic energy?”

“Demons are real?”

“Close enough.”

Riku squinted her and then decided that was really too big a topic to broach before he’d even had coffee. “So, like, could you magically make all the dishes clean?”

And that was the start of all his questions. He must have asked a million by now, but that had been the first one. (The answer had been no; magic was less physical and more intuitive that that. Apparently, it was all about energy and a way of life, not like Harry Potter at all.)

Riku was slowly piecing it all together, but he needed more data. He didn’t understand or see spirits and magic or any of the rules that Naminé and Xion and Sora seemed to intuitively know. All he wanted to do was learn more about magic, not normal things like go to class, which was going to start up in less than a week. He kept looking around when he was out, in the grocery store or the gas station, wondering how many of them knew. If any of them made tinctures and healed small aches or had magic do the dishes.

The entire world was different now.

“Here, here,” Sora said, dragging Riku across the street towards the park. Riku blinked, coming back to himself. He could have resisted Sora’s pulling, but even Sora’s good arm still had stitches under the bandage on his palm, so he didn’t. He didn’t really want to, either, not when Sora’s hand was warm and light on his wrist, impossible to ignore. They came to a stop in the park, next to the little lake that Riku liked to sit by. “Ready?”

“Ready for what. For ice cream?”

“No, I’m about to show you the spirit world,” Sora said. He slipped his good hand into Riku’s, twining their fingers together. They were shoulder to shoulder, so close that Sora could probably feel Riku’s heart stuttering in in his chest. “Ready? Don’t let go of my hand!”

Riku looked about the park. The spirit world, here? “Uh, I guess?”

Sora grinned at him. “I promise your eyes will _not _melt out of your face!”

“Sora!” Riku protested, suddenly panicked even if he _knew_ Sora wouldn’t do anything dangerous to him, but then he felt his hair lift, like he’d been electrified. He could _see_. Everything was tinted slightly blue. The people were all going around normally, but Riku could see little black shadow creatures slipping between them. He could see on the bench several feet away, which he’d thought was empty, a tall woman with blue skin was reading a book. As he watched, she lifted her head and stared at him with empty eye sockets. She gave him a slow grin.

Sora waved. She waved back. Riku swallowed. “She didn’t have eyes.”

“Don’t be rude,” Sora told him. “Okay, look over there.” He turned them towards the lake.

Riku blinked. There were several little creatures in the lake, which had been empty earlier. They looked a little like turtles, but they were all black and coated with bright glowing swirls all over their body, moving and changing and resolving themselves into new patterns before Riku’s eyes.

Wisps of smoke came out of the turtle’s mouth as one of them, the smallest, said - well, if the wisps of smoke meant the spirit was speaking - “Hello boy.”

“Hello!” Sora said to the turtle-spirits. “This is my friend Riku! He likes the park, can you take care of him? He usually can’t see the spirit world, but -”

The turtle-spirit flashed green. “Of course we can, boy.” To Riku, the turtle-spirit said, “I’m Ama. Nice to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you too,” Riku said faintly.

“He might be a little in shock, he’s usually very friendly,” Sora said, which was definitely a lie because Riku wasn’t friendly at all. Sora put his hand on Riku’s shoulder and steered him away from the turtle-spirits and the lake. “Riku?”

“I’m okay,” Riku said quickly. “I just - my brain hurts a little bit.” Everywhere he looked, he could see spirits. He could see trees that had stretchy thin glowing webs, like spiderwebs, protecting them. The lake glowed purple. There were bits of smoke and clouds coming together to talk, and it sounded like thunder every time they laughed. 

“That happens, sometimes,” Sora said. He squeezed Riku’s hand and leaned against Riku’s shoulder, his weight a comforting warmth against the brisk October air. Riku breathed in and out, focusing on Sora to steady himself. 

Riku didn’t want to think about what that meant, but he wasn’t such an idiot that he didn’t know his own tells. The way his heart wouldn’t behave when Sora came into the room, the way he felt lighter when Sora was laughing. Ever since he’d spent the night at Sora’s bedside, he been trying to avoid confronting the fact that he was already nearly completely gone on a boy he’d met only a few months ago.

He couldn’t do it much longer, especially not now that he was coated in static and there was sunshine and a mellow fruit on his tongue, two things he was coming to learn were a marker of Sora’s magic. Naminé’s magic tasted like mint and felt like ice, Xion’s magic felt like a crackling fire on the back of his neck and tasted like pumpkin, and Sora’s felt like electricity, wind, and sunshine in a dizzying combo, with the taste of - well, Riku still couldn’t figure out exactly what fruit it was, only that it was familiar, and he didn’t want to ask, since he kept licking it off his lips.

Sora nudged him with his elbow, bringing him back to himself. The electric sensation of lightning faded, although the spirit world didn’t, and Riku blinked, dazed. “The spirit world is really neon.” He turned to look at Sora, needing a slight break, but Sora was a little otherworldly too. His eyes were a little too blue, he was moving a little too slowly. He stuck out his tongue at Riku and there was a little bit of glowing magic there. He was surrounded by white, save for a little green piece of light around his heart. He was beautiful, if alien, like this.

Riku had realized before this that he’d come to gravitate towards Sora in the house, unconsciously seeking attention from him much more than Naminé. He’d been happy to chalk it up to Naminé just being quieter, but he’d have known better if he’d allowed himself to think about it. Sora was just so bright. And now he was more than that, he was the boy who’d shown Riku an entirely new world. Riku couldn’t imagine it was possible not to be completely entranced with him, this boy coated in white magic, sprinkled around him like stars. 

A lot of people, the humans, had little lights around them. Most of them had auras, like Sora did - Riku wondered if he had one too. Some of them had little patches of light glowing on their hands on their heads or their foreheads. Riku watched a woman go by with a green light beaming out from her heart. “I - what’s the light that she has? Right there?”

Sora looked. The corners of his mouth turned down, just slightly. “That’s a curse.”

“They’re all _cursed_?” Riku winced; his voice was too loud. Thankfully no one in the park looked at them, two boys holding hands sitting on a bench while one, possibly, had a minor crisis over the existence of curses.

Sora squeezed his hand. “No, only some of them! Some of them are good luck charms or wealth charms. Charms for good marriage! Some are just good thoughts. But sometimes it’s a curse.”

Riku watched the woman with the green curse around her heart continue down the path. “Can you get rid of it?”

For a second, Sora looked like his heart was breaking. “No. I’m not - I’m not strong enough.” He shook his head. “No.”

Riku reached and touched the little green light around Sora’s heart. He could feel Sora’s heart going so fast, maybe as fast as his was. “I - is this a curse too?”

Sora folded his other hand around Riku’s, the bandages rough against his skin. “You don’t have to worry about me, Riku!”

That meant _yes_. “Of course I do,” Riku snapped. “You sure aren’t.”

Despite Riku’s tone, the corner of Sora’s eyes crinkled up. “Thanks, Riku, but really. It’s not really a curse so much as a - a price I chose to pay.” He shrugged, his chest rising and falling under Riku’s palm. “Magic always has a price.”

“Tell me more about magic,” Riku said impulsively. He could see that Sora didn’t want to talk about it, but Riku didn’t want to leave the subject entirely. He wanted to know more. If the curse came around again, so be it, but he wanted to hear Sora’s voice, know more about him and this world that had been a mystery for so long. “About your magic.”

Sora looked startled. “Are you sure? You seem, uh. Overwhelmed?”

_Deeply _overwhelmed. “I am. Please?”

“Okay,” Sora said. “Um, if I try really hard, I can see people’s futures? It’s like - uhhh, it’s like - I can see all the layers around her? It’s like an onion! The future has layers and it’s like I’m unraveling them all.”

Riku laughed. “Show me.”

Sora looked around then pointed at a woman walking through the park. “That woman. She’s - hold on-” he took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes. White magic was coming off him like mist, his hair blowing straight up. “She’s wearing a red dress even though she hates the color red. Her mother always used to say that she looked good in red, and she had a red uniform she wore to private school every day. She hated the uniform and the school. Right now, she believes that if she ever has kids, she’ll never go against their wishes like that, but in twelve - actually, fourteen, fourteen years, she will and her daughter will hate it just as much as she did. Her daughter will go away to college and never come home for the holidays.” He sighed, the magic abruptly stopping as he slumped unhappily. “Still think magic isn’t scary?”

“I - I mostly think that’s sad.”

“It might not happen. That’s just one possibility out of thousands. It’s a strong one. But another one is in just a few weeks; she’s going to go on a blind date and meet the woman she’s going to marry! They’re going to get married in a courthouse wedding and they’ll have two cats and three hamsters.” Sora shook his head as if to clear all the woman’s futures from his sight. “It’s all life, Riku!”

“Can everyone do that?”

“Do what?”

“See people’s onion futures.”

Sora threw back his head and laughed. “No! No, I’m just good at that type of magic. All Xion would be able to tell you is that that woman has brown hair. She’s way better at other things! She’s a really powerful conduit and she’s good with plants. Probably why Naminé likes her so much.”

“Naminé isn’t good with plants?”

“No, she’s fine with plants, just her _magic_ doesn’t make her good at plants,” Sora clarified. “Her magic is like - icier than that. And she’s really good at figuring out the present, like - she’d been able to tell you if that woman was hungry and what she wanted to eat or if she was thinking about going to the store. In the moment stuff, I guess?”

Riku squinted. “So that’s how she keeps guessing foods I don’t like.”

He didn’t realize until after they left the park, after Sora carefully separated their hands and Riku’s vision had become painfully clean again, spirits erased, what Sora was trying to do. Sure, they were friends and Sora wanted to show off the magic and the spirits, but - when he’d been talking about the woman in the red dress, he’d been trying to prove it was scary. He was trying to kickstart Riku’s decision that he couldn’t handle it all, that he needed to leave the house.

There was a weird sort of logic to it - it was easier on everyone if Riku decided now, instead of drawing it out and hurting everyone because he wanted to pretend he was strong.

But he _was_ strong. It would be impossible to leave Sora and the magic now.

\-----

The last thing Riku wanted to do at this point in time, of course, was return to lectures, but his first classes started 8 am sharp on Monday, five days after he’d had his eyeballs had metaphorically burned out of his head by the spirit world.

Suffice to say, class wasn’t _pleasant_. It was fine, but Riku was a grad student now, and syllabus day was clearly a thing of the past. They jumped _right_ into the lecture. Riku could feel his thoughts disappearing the second they entered his head; it was all he could do to keep up notes.

Naminé had promised to eat lunch with him, since her studio painting class started at ten-thirty, and so after lecture, Riku made his way to the quad. He walked around a few times over the summer to get the lay of the land, but it was so full of rushing students now that he felt overwhelmed. He kept trying calming breaths, but with everyone yelling, it wasn’t working.

“Riku! Over here!” Naminé was standing on a bench in the quad, not caring at all who was looking at her, and waving like she was bringing a ship into shore. Riku pushed through the crowd of people to help her down. “Here you go!”

She passed him a little metallic lunchbox, the kind that Riku had taken to school in kindergarten. It had a glittery unicorn. Naminé had her own lunchbox, one with butterflies. 

“What’s this?”

“It’s from Sora,” Naminé said, straddling the bench. She didn’t seem to care at all that her skirt was hitching up, possibly because it meant she was showing off the detailed tattoo on her thigh. She didn’t seem to care about all the people rushing by at all, apparently perfectly content with the knowledge that in five minutes, most of them would be in class anyways.

So Riku sat down across from her, straddling the bench and popping open the lunchbox. Inside, in perfectly neat little compartments, there were carrot slices, one of those Babybell cheeses, pretzels, an apple, and a ham and cheese sandwich. There was even a little polka-dotted napkin. “He made us lunch?”

Naminé nodded and passed over a bottle of Coke too. “He always does.”

“That’s really cute,” Riku said, without even meaning to. He flushed the moment he said it, and Naminé grinned at him knowingly. Either she was very perceptive or Riku was obvious. He remembered what Sora had said about her knowing the present, but really - Riku was sure he was obvious. He’d always been prone to flushing and stammering, and it had been coming out in full spades since his revelation in the park with Sora last week.

Naminé nodded. “He’s very thoughtful.”

“I - yeah.”

“He usually comes by to have lunch with me a couple of times a week,” Naminé said, stealing one of Riku’s carrots. “I’ll be sure to tell you when.”

Now Riku was _really_ blushing. He didn’t want to think about this. How could he, at a time like this? When there was so much going on, he couldn’t be thinking of Sora’s smile and the way he lit up when he laughed and the ghost of his touch on Riku’s hand when he wanted Riku’s attention. He had _classes_ to deal with. “Naminé…”

She grinned at him. “Alright, alright. How was your first class?”

Riku groaned. “Fine.”

“Uh-huh, sounds like it.”

“I don’t even know why I’m here, except I didn’t want to get a job,” Riku mumbled, eating a carrot stick. He didn’t, at all. All he knew was that he didn’t know what to do, and he liked English fine, and he’ll probably become some high school teacher, which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, except for when he lay awake at night, he could barely stomach the thought. English was fine. It just wasn’t his dream. Not that he knew what his dream was, not at all. “I guess I’ll end up teaching - _don’t laugh!”_

“Sorry,” Naminé said, smothering her giggles. “No, I’m sorry, I really am. I think you’ll be a good teacher.”

“You’re not instilling me with confidence,” Riku mumbled, opening his little Babybell cheese. In a weird way, he envied Sora for not having to think about this sort of thing. He just worked his odd jobs and it was fine. That was a cruel thing to think, though, because Sora, despite not having actually _said_ he’d never finished high school, clearly regretted not finishing. Even if Riku didn’t know the details, it was clear.

Naminé touched the back of Riku’s hand softly, maybe aware that his brain was a billion miles away. “Can I just say,” Naminé said earnestly. “I think you would be good for each other.”

“I - thanks,” Riku mumbled. He was blushing again, he just knew it. “It doesn’t matter, though.”

\-----

It got easier. Both to go to class and to deal with the magic world. Riku had started a little series of spirit carvings, after he’d looked down at a bit of wood and found the turtle-spirits from the lake halfway carved out. Sora seemed delighted by it, wanting to know if he could show them. Riku didn’t care either way, he didn’t want to keep them, really. He only whittled to keep his hands busy and if he kept them all, his entire room would just be covered in them. He only had kept one little bird in the entire time he’d been whittling, and it sat on his nightstand proudly, and the rest were gone.

It also became easier to deal with Sora, who didn’t seem to have any idea that Riku was having a mild, permanent crisis every time their hands so much as brushed. If the way he kept grabbing Riku’s hand to pull him along was any indication, he was absolutely clueless.

His hand wrapped around Riku’s hand again, tugging him to the left. “Let’s go in here!”

“Where?” Riku said, pointedly not focusing on Sora’s thumb against his pulse. It was an unusually cool day in October, and Sora had shown up on campus with three lunchboxes - his own was a mermaid - and they’d all had a picnic on the grass between classes. Except for Sora, who didn’t have any classes, and Riku, whose class was cancelled due to an “alarming plumbing emergency + children,” as his professor had put it. He’d never walked home with Sora before. “What is this place?”

“It’s a shop,” Sora said cheerfully as he pushed open the door, leaving Riku’s wrist behind. It was small and bright and full of plants. “Aqua? Master Eraqus?”

A blue-haired woman rounded the counter and stopped dead. “Sora, your arm better be _completely _fine if you’re stepping foot in here.”

Sora held up his unbandaged arm as proof. “I’m _totally_ fine,” he reassured her. “Riku, tell her I’m fine!”

“He’s fine,” Riku told her dutifully. It was true, it had been nearly two months, and while Sora’s arm had gone through several very disgusting stages, the burn had faded to light pink. Except for a stubbornly deep area on his bicep, where whatever had grabbed him had held him tightest, it was almost entirely gone.

The woman carefully took Sora’s hand and rotating his arm. “I just worry when it comes to wraithfire. I know Naminé’s good at healing spells –” She looked up worriedly, biting at her lip. “Sora, this is going to scar.”

“But I have full mobility,” Sora said brightly. “I bet I could even do a cartwheel, which I will not do right now out of respect for your worry.”

The woman laughed, the clouded look on her face clearing. “I guess you’re fine.”

“Aqua, this is Riku, my roommate,” Sora said, waving his free hand towards Riku. “Riku, I work here sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“He does exorcisms in the back room,” Aqua said, which was when Riku realized this was a _magic_ shop. Among the plants, there were crystals and candles and old dusty books. Old silvery jewelry that thrummed with magic, if Riku closed his eyes and tried to focus in on it. He was getting better on sensing magic, but only if he _knew_ it was around. “Lovely to meet you, Riku. This is your first time in?”

“Uh, yeah,” Riku said.

“Aqua, what if I hadn’t _told_ him!” Sora bounded up to the front counter. “What if you’d ruined my secret cover?”

“Then don’t take him to the witch you’re apprenticed to,” Aqua let out a laughed as she rounded behind the counter. “Okay, what do you want?”

“I need a Cura charm and oxrush flowers, if you have any. And chalk. And did you get those moonstone earrings in yet?”

“Well, you know where the chalk is, and the charms.” Aqua opened the drawer behind the counter and pulled out what looked like a schedule. “But the oxrush… I just had had a woman in who bought them all for the full moon. Are they urgent?”

“No, no,” Sora assured her. “A water spirit wants a pond purification, I can wait. The moonstone and flowers would have just made me less drained.”

“I’ll make the earrings tomorrow.” Aqua reached up to touch her own earrings, elegant silver loops. Like Naminé and Sora, she had several in each ear. Sora often twisted his when he got bored, but until now, Riku hadn’t known it was a magic thing. Sora just seemed to like jewelry, he also had rings and bracelets and necklaces. “Ven can deliver them.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Sora said quickly. Riku squinted at him, at the sudden tense lines of his shoulders and his tapping fingers on the counter. He probably wasn’t allowed to ask what was wrong and he definitely wasn’t allowed to place his hand on the small of Sora’s back, to calm him down, but he did anyway, accidentally. Sora noticeably stilled, taking a deep breath as Riku pulled his hand away like he’d been jamming his fingers into light sockets. But at least Sora was less tense. “He doesn’t have to go out of his way! I want to start picking up shifts again, so I’ll just pick it up!”

“Alright,” Aqua said comfortably. “And here is your list of clients.” She produced a small folded square of notebook paper.

“Right,” Sora said. “I’ll be in tomorrow.”

“Are you _sure _you’re okay?”

“I will be if I don’t die of boredom,” Sora called, whirling around. He did seem to know where everything was, he kept reaching for things on shelves and hovering his hand above them, like he was feeling whether it was right for him. Maybe he _was_ doing that. Maybe that was how he always picked out the perfect fruits and vegetables.

“So, Riku,” Aqua said, while Sora was busy collecting things. “Never been in a witch shop before?”

“Um, no,” Riku said, feeling embarrassed all of a sudden. “No magic.”

“Really?” Aqua said, and he didn’t quite like this tone. “I’m not sure I believe that’s true. You’ve got some on your hands.”

Riku looked down at them. “My hands?” He couldn’t see anything. “Sora never mentioned-”

“I don’t think Sora’s noticed,” Aqua said. She reached out, clearly looking to Riku for permission to touch his hand. Riku offered it up freely and she inspected it like she was doing a palm reading, tracing her cool fingers over his heartline. “I think it’s partially some of his magic. Sora isn’t very good at noticing that.”

Riku frowned. “Is that common?”

Aqua laughed. “No, most people can sense their own magic very well.” Aqua curled Riku’s hand into a fist. “Sora’s special - he tends to give off a little magic in everything he does. A lot of his friends carry just little incidental good luck charms from him, just because he grabbed their hand or kissed their cheek.”

Riku could feel his own cheeks heating up. He wondered if that was why Sora was always grabbing his hand. Trying to give him good luck charms and fortune charms. He wished he could see them, the little bits of Sora’s magic that clung to his hands. “Guess I’m just lucky then.”

She grinned at him as Sora came back to the counter, hands full of flowers and candles and potions, laying them all carefully down in an exact order. “Guess so.”

\-----

For all that Riku learned what felt like everything about Naminé and Sora, they still managed to surprise him. In the typical ways - now that they could talk freely in front of Riku, they talked about exorcisms and jobs for spirits and the ghost who was haunting the diner near campus. None of that Riku could have expected to hear, but he at least expected to hear something wildly outrageous and required an entire epic to explain, including footnotes.

But they also got him in ways that were truly surprising.

He’d come in from running to the grocery store - for his own things, primarily, though Sora _had_ asked him to pick up parmesan cheese, a carton of eggs, and strawberries. It was anyone’s guess what he was going to make with them - to find a small red sedan parked at the curb. He frowned at it. It looked kind of familiar, but then he must have seen a thousand red sedans in his life.

He gathered the grocery bags - making two trips was for chumps - and carried them into the kitchen through the backdoor. Sora was in the living room, talking loudly with the person who was probably the owner of the red sedan, and the way they were arguing, Riku would bet they hadn’t heard him come in.

“Kairi, I just don’t know why you’re upset. Nothing has changed,” Sora was saying. He sounded clearly frustrated, a tone that Riku had never really heard from him before. He’d heard exasperated and annoyed, but Sora sounded like he was at his wit’s end. Riku guessed even Sora must have a line. 

The owner of the sedan - Kairi, presumably - sighed and said, “_That’s_ the problem, Sora.” She sounded frustrated too, but to their credit, even though it was _definitely_ an argument, neither of them were yelling. Either they just didn’t like yelling or they’d had this argument a thousand times before. From the exhaustion in both their voices, it sounded like the second was more likely. “You haven’t even _done _anything! You haven’t tried.”

“That’s not fair,” Sora said. Riku could just imagine his petulant face, his crossed arms. “I don’t want to waste my time on that when I’m happy as is!”

“You could be _happier-”_

Riku reached over and pulled the back door open, so carefully and quietly, then slammed the door shut, sending the noise throughout the entire house. This was really too private for him to be listening too, as curious as he was. 

Sora called, “Riku?”

“Yeah,” Riku yelled back, getting himself a glass of water. “Got your groceries. God knows what you’re going to make with parmesan and strawberries-”

“Oh my fucking _god_,” the girl said. “_Riku_?”

Riku jerked his head up and looked directly at her, a redhead in a pink tank top. Like her car, she looked familiar in a way he couldn’t place. “Yeah?”

She grabbed his hand. “Kairi! From Destiny Islands!”

Riku blinked as the memory caught up to him. Kairi, his best friend since childhood “Oh my god,” he said, dumbstruck. He accepted the hug she gave him. “Wow, it’s got to be-”

“Seven years, pretty much,” Kairi said. “Since you went to college! Oh, wow! You got really _buff_, Riku.”

Riku choked on his water; Sora laughed so hard he had to put the carton of strawberries back onto the counter to avoid dropping them. “Kairi!” He wished Sora and Kairi would both stop laughing, he could feel himself turning red.

This gentle teasing had been familiar with Kairi, he remembered that. Most of their friendship had been this back and forth. It was hard to remember most of it, the way it was hard to really focus on anything on Destiny Islands. Like Riku had drawn a veil over the whole thing. He really couldn’t recall why he’d gone to college and never returned. They Skyped occasionally, but by the time sophomore year rolled around, it had been ages since they’d even done that.

He felt like he should remember better what happened but he was really drawing a blank. His head started to ache, like he wasn’t supposed to be trying to remember anything at all.

“Riku? You okay?”

“Fine,” Riku mumbled, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Just - sudden headache. Brain freeze, I guess.”

“I should go, then,” Kairi said. She was also exchanging mysterious unreadable glances with Sora, which was unfair, because shouldn’t Riku have those, too? Shouldn’t he have a best friend? Shouldn’t he still be able to read Kairi’s looks? It might have been six years, but fourteen years of friendship didn’t disappear, right? “Riku, you’re on campus all the time, right? We should get lunch!”

“I - yeah, sounds great,” Riku mumbled. 

“Sora, you better fucking _call_ me later,” Kairi said, an edge to her voice. “And I really want you to come down to one of my games, sometime, okay?”

“I don’t know, Kairi, I’ll try but only if Naminé can go, I don’t think the crowds-” Sora said, his voice fading a bit as he walked her to the door. Once he shut it behind her, the house was overbearingly silent.

“Here, drink this,” Sora said softly, pressing a glass into Riku’s hand. Riku startled, he hadn’t heard Sora return. “It’s good for headaches; Nami gets them all the time.”

Riku sniffed it and then down the entire thing in one go. Tasted a little bit like orange juice, mixed with - lemon? Mango? Something familiar. It tasted exactly like Sora’s magic and - “Is that paopu fruit?”

“Yeah, it is! I make juice out of it, but I added some mint and orange - oh, no, do you not like paopu fruit?”

“It’s fine,” Riku managed to say. Actually, it was delicious. The silly little kids’ legend about sharing a paopu fruit with someone rang around in his head, but that was just something kids _said_, it wasn’t like Riku actually knew anyone with an unbreakable bond. Some of the restaurants back home even had paopu fruit smoothies. Of course Sora’s magic tasted of paopu fruit, the stupid destiny fruit, the fruit of possibility and bonds. Riku wouldn’t - well, he wouldn’t _mind_ sharing one with Sora. The thought was so ridiculously sappy he was almost disgusted with himself. “It’s just - makes me homesick.”

“Me too,” Sora said sympathetically. “I miss Destiny Islands so much - that’s why whenever I go back there, I get some fruit!”

Riku absorbed this. Sora’s magic tasting like that suddenly made a lot more sense. “You’re from Destiny Islands?”

“Yup!”

“I - me too,” Riku said. He wasn’t sure if Sora had known this before today. “Did you go to the high school there?” He’d have remembered Sora, certainly. Sora was magnetic, drawing Riku’s eye every time he stepped in the room. Constantly in motion, constantly smiling and laughing. There was no way Riku could have missed him. No _way_ Riku could have avoided having a crush on him. “I don’t think I ever saw you around.”

“Ah, no, I didn’t graduate.” Sora busied himself with putting the eggs and the cheese into the fridge, the tension in his shoulders making it _very _clear that he didn’t want to talk about this. This was the first time he’d ever said it to Riku out loud, but the way he talked sometimes… Riku had guessed this. “I met Kairi there, though.”

Still, Riku pressed on a little bit, startled to have discovered this connection to home when he hadn’t thought about it in so long. “Do you go back a lot?”

Sora’s smile looked a little pasted on. Riku wanted to ask why, but he knew it was a bad idea. He wasn’t allowed to ask things like that, or to brush a thumb against that fake smile. So he kept his hands to his sides as Sora answered. “No. There’s nothing back there for me anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sora voice: lets drink six five hour energies and summon a ghost
> 
> anways haha.......... we got a paopu fruit, we got some gay bonds, we got some intrigue.............. check me out at @sorikuvalid on twitter! im kind of on hiatus until the kh dlc comes out but u know , wHATEVER


	3. Chapter 3

Being around Sora was easy, too easy, like breathing. It felt like waking up, stretching your arms out and feeling the satisfying stretch in his biceps, the pop of his neck. It meant that Riku could actively feel pieces of himself settlings happily around Sora, like his heart would rather be over there with Sora, on the couch with his legs thrown over the back, instead of in his own ribcage. It was like Sora was uncovering every part of Riku, even parts long forgotten, and claiming them for himself without even noticing he was doing it. Every time he held Riku’s hands, it _burned_.

Riku liked him an impossible amount. Naminé could tell, probably based on the blushing, and she was nice enough not to tease him, but Xion could also tell, because Riku apparently wasn’t subtle at all, and Xion _wasn’t_ afraid to tease him. Every time she came over to help Sora garden, or to pick Naminé up for a date, she’d grin at the way Riku looked at him.

Sora was an easily read book, but that didn’t mean he had no secrets. There was still so much to understand, magic aside, like whatever his deal was with going places alone, like the grocery store. He _refused_ to go to the grocery store alone, despite how much he was the only one in the house who really cooked. Just a few weeks ago, he’d asked Naminé to go with him to pick up groceries.

“I can’t,” she apologized, “I have a shift at the shop. I can pick something up for you after?”

Sora sighed, crossing his arms. Naminé had been picking up more and more shifts at the tattoo parlor as it got closer to graduation, maybe so she could pay for graduation costs. “You don’t choose fruit right.”

“That is because they’re all identical.”

Sora gasped, pointing at her with the slice of pizza they’d ordered for dinner tonight. Naminé’s inability to find perfectly ripe fruit at the grocery store was a long-time feud. “Slander!”

“I can go with you,” Riku cut in.

Sora and Naminé looked at him like he’d grown a second head instead of offered to do mundane chores. “No, I’ll go tomorrow,” Naminé said decisively, returning to her pizza, which she ate with a knife and fork.

Riku went back to his pizza too, picking off the mushrooms on top. He just didn’t _get_ it. He didn’t take it personally – he’d never really considered himself to be particularly good at grocery shopping, or fun to go grocery shopping with, but he wanted to get it, at least. He’d told Sora lots of things about himself, like how his father had been the one who taught him to carve and how he’d been so proud when he’d made a horrible unsteady table, which was still in his childhood home and slanted to the left so badly you couldn’t put a glass of water on it without it sliding right off.

He told Sora that he kept up the whittling even though he didn’t talk to his rather anymore, because the whittling calmed him down and he’d been a pretty angry kid. Sometimes the whittling also made him angry, but by the end of it, he usually did feel a bit better. He told Sora that didn’t talk to his mom anymore, that he hadn’t really gone home in years. He’d even told Sora that he wasn’t even sure he wanted to be a grad student; he just wasn’t sure what else to do.

Sora had pressed his head against Riku’s shoulder. “You can always change that, Riku. You’re still just a kid.”

“_You’re_ just a kid,” Riku retorted, because he had a year on Sora and he didn’t know what else to say. He knew that, technically, he could do whatever he wanted, but he wasn’t good at being confident and he _was_ good at second-guessing himself. It still felt too late, even though he was barely twenty-four. It was too late to change.

In return, he thought Sora told him an awful lot too, but with Sora, he was always sharing and talking in a way that just seemed so natural. Riku envied it. And now Riku could just _ask _things, whenever he wanted. They could just coexist together, reading on the couch with their legs tangled up. And Riku had asked about that too, because, well-

“You don’t strike me as someone who reads much.”

Sora kicked at him halfheartedly, dropping the book open on his stomach and obscuring the little smiley face icon. “Jerk.”

“Well!” Riku said, because he didn’t really have a response to that, but Sora was laughing, clearly not expecting one. Sora was kind of an enigma, so maybe Riku should have expected it. Sora was an excellent cook, and he liked to go running and fix the sink when it didn’t work and he gardened, so reading – Riku craned his neck to see the spine and it was some sort of sci-fi thing – didn’t seem too far from that, but all those other activities were so much more hands on in a way that was just very Sora.

“I didn’t used to,” Sora admitted after he calmed down, stretching his legs out again so that they were resting on top of Riku’s. Riku was more than happy to close his own book and slid it onto the coffee table. Sora’s sci-fi book looked way more fun than his marked-up copy of _Much Ado About Nothing_. “Actually, I was on track to barely graduate, that’s how much I hated reading. But then once I _didn’t_ graduate and I was missing out, I wanted it _way _more.”

“Why didn’t you graduate?” Riku asked, then immediately in a rush of panic, “Wait, you don’t have to answer that, that was rude of me-”

Sora snorted, looking amused at Riku’s antics but thankfully not offended. “I was - pretty sick my last year.” That was new. Sora didn’t look like someone who’d ever been sick for a second. He was golden and healthy and alive. Riku’s eyes strayed towards Sora’s heart, where he couldn’t see but still _knew _there was a curse sitting, invisible. He couldn’t forget. “So I never finished.”

“Couldn’t you still now though?”

Sora shrugged. “Probably.” He picked at the bandage on his wrist that was covering a tattoo Naminé had done for him two days past. Riku had yet to see it. “But I can’t really afford to go to university anyways, and what I’m doing now works fine for me and I don’t need a high school degree for that.”

“And you do - what,” Riku said, because he actually still didn’t know. Sora still just went out at all hours and did whatever he wanted.

“Little bit of everything,” Sora said cheerfully. “I mean, I work at the shop with Aqua, and Kairi and I are like her apprentices - Riku, you okay?”

Riku had started coughing after he’d swallowed his coffee wrong, because _Kairi_? “Fine,” he wheezed, hand shaking. “You said Kairi?”

“Yeah, she and I are part-time?” Clearly, he didn’t understand the magnitude of what he’d just said; which was that Riku’s childhood friend had magic, had probably had it her whole life and Riku had never known. He wondered if his mother had known that when they’d been stupid kids playing at the beach and collecting sea shells.

“Great.” Riku swallowed another sip of coffee just to clear his throat. “Fine. Continue.”

“Well, I do that, and I also sell charms through the store, and then Xion and I do exorcisms, too.”

Riku had seen him do one, very quickly, when they’d been walking home. He’d sort of stopped on the corner of the street, Riku bumping into him and looking up blearily from his phone, where he was composing an email very politely and desperately asking for an extension.

“What gives?” Riku had asked.

Sora had reached back behind him, grabbing Riku’s wrist with his thumb on Riku’s pulse point, which Riku knew by now meant that Sora was about to _show_ him something. Riku closed his eyes because watching the spirit world slid into gaze always made him a little nauseous, and when he opened them, there was a dripping oil slick-looking thing standing in the yard next to them, the picket fence halfway through its stomach. The gate was swinging through its many, many legs. Sora held out a hand, palm to the demon, which moaned, and then Sora flared up brilliant white. 

The demon also flared up in a rainbow of colors, sigils that Riku couldn’t understand suddenly coating its body. Then it went up in smoke, making Riku cough and removing the sweet paopu taste of magic. He missed its absence keenly.

“Sorry,” Sora said, panting slightly. There was a bit of sweat rolling down his forehead, but Riku wasn’t sure if that was from the magic or from the unusually warm day. “It - there’s kids in the house. It was sapping energy.”

Riku wrinkled his nose, feeling slightly ill. “So you killed it?”

“I exorcised it,” Sora corrected, wiping his hand on his shirt, even though there wasn’t anything on it. “It’s different. Spirits are hard to kill, and a lot of them don’t really die like humans do, but - it won’t be back here and able to touch the human world again for a long time.”

“How do you _know _all these things,” Riku said despairingly. “You have to show me the secret handbook.” 

That still remained the only exorcism Riku had seen though. He had to assume some of them were much more dangerous, considering exhibit A was Sora’s arm being burnt and exhibit B was how he sometimes came home with cuts and bruises that Riku tried not to fuss over.

He thought he was doing _quite_ well on the whole “we’re being friends and I’m being casual” front. Naminé went home with Xion for Christmas and Sora said he didn’t have anywhere to go, and Riku hadn’t gone home for any holidays in four years, count ‘em, so they celebrated with a very small turkey and an absolutely delicious apple pie - all done by Sora, of course, who didn’t look at a single cookbook despite saying this was his first time cooking a turkey. 

Riku thought about kissing him thousands of times during dinner. When Sora had put him to work peeling apples and then complimented the way Riku could peel a whole apple with one beautiful curlicue, like it was a piece of wood. When Sora had started working on the mash potatoes, when Riku had the first bite of turkey and it was absolutely perfect. They spent the whole holiday telling each other stories like it was midnight at a sleepover, and they watched stupid movies, and Sora fell asleep on the couch every single night, and in the morning they sat silently at the coffee table while Riku read the news on his phone and Sora stared out the window dreamily, head propped up on his hand. And Riku could just lean over and kiss him, softly, in the early morning light, with the snow falling.

But he just couldn’t. Sora was so brilliant and magnetic and - and Riku didn’t have very many friends. He hadn’t had friends like this ever, maybe, definitely not recently, and as much as he’d love to kiss Sora, the chance of disaster is just. It was huge. 

Sora was _Sora_, he must have dozens of people lining up to date him. Not that he’d mentioned any. Maybe the way he’d looked at Naminé and Xion wistfully sometimes meant Riku had a chance - but no.

No, he couldn’t afford to think like that. He might be a disaster sometimes - all the time around Sora, really, but he wasn’t a total idiot, and he _knew_ it was a very bad idea to fall in love with your roommate who also was one of your only friends. He was just a guy, a grad student who hated his major, just a guy with bad dreams, someone who didn’t go home for holidays and had trouble letting people in and trouble convincing them to stick around.

Sora was captivating and beautiful and he constantly was doing good things for people just because he wanted to make them happy. He helped clear the pond of negative energies for the turtle-spirits and he always made Naminé’s favorite breakfast for her when she had early morning classes, even though he himself hated eggs Benedict and eggs of all varieties. He helped Xion work on her car on warm afternoons in the driveway, just because she wanted company. And he performed all those exorcisms to help people, and he happily gave out good luck and magic out like it was natural as breathing. He was beautiful, inside and out, and he made Riku feel beautiful too, the way he tilted his head and laughed at Riku when he’d said something particularly funny, usually on accident.

Riku was just an ordinary person with issues. So he kept quiet. He was good at keeping it all in.

\-----

Naminé surprised them all with tickets to an art show in April. Riku glanced at the one he got then put it down on the counter, more intent on finishing his flashcards. Sora, since he was the one quizzing Riku and not the one who might fail, was perfectly happy to put them down and look at a ticket, which was why _he_ was the one who let out a whoop. “Naminé, this is your art show!”

Naminé’s cheeks were flushed red. “Yeah.”

Riku picked his ticket back up, squinting at it. Naminé had been working on her final pieces for this thing for months now. Riku had seen bits and pieces of them, because he brought her coffee and lunch sometimes when he was on campus, but she’d been very superstitious about not letting him see. “This is your senior show?” She nodded. “That’s awesome, Nami.”

“My professor said she was going to invite a few, um, gallery owners for everyone to meet.”

Sora looked ecstatic. “You could get your work in a gallery?”

Naminé laughed. “They don’t show student work, Sora, it’s just so we can make connections! I could work there after graduating.”

“Maybe you just don’t dream big enough,” Sora grumbled, crossing his arms like he always did when he was being particularly silly and not using his brain and they called him out on it. It was one of Riku’s favorite looks, not that he had a least favorite.

“You’ll go, right? If Riku goes? Kairi already said she’s free...” Naminé twined her fingers together nervously. Riku blinked, unsure of how he’d become a bargaining chip. Though Sora hated crowds, so maybe Riku would help, a little bit. He’d like to, if he could. He’d do anything. He wanted Sora to be able to revel in his best friends’ art show and not worry about suffocating and also, he just wanted to see Naminé’s art show.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Sora assured her, reaching out and grabbing her hand, freeing from her from nerves. He swung it between them a few times, giddy. “I thought you were going to go work at the shop full-time after graduation?”

Naminé shrugged. “Dad says it’s not proper for people to become tattoo artists, even if they are magic-”

Riku picked his head up, interested in magic tattoos, because _what_? Did Naminé work in a _magic _tattoo parlor? But he didn’t butt in, just filed it away for later, wondering if that pattern on Sora’s arm really _meant_ something. He’d always thought it had, with the way it always captivated his attention, but Riku could have easily just chalked that up to being head over heels for the boy.

“Nami, he’s _evil_-”

“He’s not evil-”

“Yes he is,” Sora decided, shaking her hand up and down until she smiled at him. “You should do what you want. And I’ll definitely go to the art show and - oh, wait right here!” He dropped her hand and dashed off.

“My flashcards!” Riku called after him.

“It’s a surprise for you too!” Sora called, which wasn’t an answer, and then he reappeared, holding three pastries, each covered in whip cream and topped with a perfectly red strawberry. “I went to the Bistro and got them! I was going to save them until after Riku got an A on his final but Nami, we should have them now!”

He passed one to Naminé, with an extra strawberry sitting neatly on top of the whipped cream, and passed another to Riku. Riku held it clumsily, trying not to spill crumbs, because they were all bad at cleaning and if he did, the crumbs would be there for another year.

It looked delicious. “What if I eat this and don’t pass?”

Sora pulled the flashcards he’d tucked into his shirt pocket out. “I have been sitting here for an _hour_ with you,” he said dramatically, dropping them on the table with as loud as thump as fifty-seven flashcards could make. “I’m _confident_ you’re gonna pass.”

“If you say it, does that magically make it true?”

“No,” Sora started to say, but Naminé talked right over him, delighted. “He does sometimes!”

Sora groaned as she laughed. “I don’t do it on purpose,” he whined, thumbing at his nose. “Sometimes I accidentally leak.”

“It’s because you’re bad at magic,” Naminé mumbled, mouth full of strawberry cream. Sora threw a flashcard at her, laughing. “I’m kidding!”

Riku rescued his notecard and tucked it back into his stack. “Is _this_ like Harry Potter, where you get to do magic accidentally without a wand as a kid?”

Naminé looked at Sora who shrugged. “I guess,” she said thoughtfully. “Though usually it goes the other way. Kids learn through books and then it gets more intuitive and second nature.”

“So actually, the fact that he keeps leaking means he’s really good,” Riku said, trying hard to keep a straight face. Naminé was clearly struggling with the same problem as Sora stuck his tongue out at both of them, decided arguing wasn't worth it, and committed to eating his strawberry tart in three giant bites. “So do I have a good luck charm now?”

“I swear I didn’t give one to you,” Sora promised. Like Riku would _mind_ if he did. “It usually happens when I’m really emotional. But I will give you one and also I will make your favorite breakfast tomorrow so you will definitely pass, so eat your stupid tart, okay?”

Riku ate the tart. 

Sora did make pancakes and pressed good luck into his hands the next morning, and Riku did get an A, thankfully, even though both Sora and Naminé claimed they knew he would regardless of the luck charm. Riku suspiciously asked them if he’d even been given one or if they’d just given him some sort of weird placebo effect, which made Naminé howl with laughter and drop her sketchbook. Sora promised he hadn’t and Riku was inclined to believe it because he’d felt the warmth in his hands as he left for campus, tingling with what he thought was magic.

\-----

Naminé’s senior art show was on a Wednesday evening, and they all went together, Sora locking the door behind them as they all trailed out down the steps and to the sidewalk. Xion had offered her arm to Naminé gallantly, looking exactly the part in her neat black suit, and they walked hand in hand down the sidewalk in front of Sora and Riku, Naminé’s blue dress billowing behind her. The back was sheer and with the orange glow of the setting sun against it, Riku could see the black arcing lines of the tattoo that covered her from shoulder blade to the dip of her waist. It was impossible to tell what it was through the white lace, but Riku had seen enough of it to be reasonably certain it was white flowers blooming into color against a starlight night sky.

Sora had his hands in his pockets, looking handsome in dark jeans and a button-down, jacket thrown over his arm because he always ran hot, even though it was mid-April and there was still a bit of chill in the breeze. Riku thought about reaching over and taking his hand, mirroring Naminé and Xion in front of them, but he wasn’t brave enough for that. Instead, he kept his hands in his pockets while Sora chattered on about what food they might have and who else might be at the senior show, and did Riku think it was going to all be paintings or would there other sorts of art too?

He expected Sora to stick close to Naminé once they got inside, but Sora must have realized that she’d be busy talking to professors and classmates, because he hung back at Riku’s side. They’d arrived earlier enough that the campus gallery room was half-full, mostly students and teachers in beautiful colors.

Naminé’s work was gorgeous, full-sized paintings full of riots of color and bold lines and somehow a little soft, in a way that made Riku feel like Naminé had broken into his dreams. No wonder she hadn’t wanted him to see it when he was bringing her lunch; the full effect of her four paintings, wall to wall, made him feel like he was in the center of a flame, glowing.

His chest was tight and warm with pride as he walked around her corner. All of her paintings were taller than him, which meant Naminé had probably needed to stand on ladders to reach the top, and it meant that as the gallery got fuller and impossible to move around in, Riku could still see the bright oranges and reds of her work. Naminé slowly relaxed as the room filled up, laughing and talking with her classmates, Xion’s arm around her, their heads bent together like they were sharing secrets. They probably were.

Riku allowed himself for a brief moment to imagine himself and Sora like that; him leaning down as Sora leaned up, grinning. Hands intertwined privately. 

He looked around for Sora, but couldn’t see him anywhere in the crowd. He put a hand on Xion’s elbow and yelled, “Where’s Sora?”

She jerked her head up, looking around with narrowed eyes, but she was too short to see over the crowd. “I haven’t seen him since it got full,” she said, sounding a little worried. Kairi and Naminé, over by Naminé’s largest painting, both swiveled their heads around to look at them, and Riku thought not for the first time that those girls were something a little special. Their magic reached for each other in a way that felt like fate, so strong that even Riku’s poor magic sense could feel it rushing past. “Why?”

“Well, he’s claustrophobic, isn’t he,” Riku said, distractedly. He couldn’t see Sora in the crowd at all, but he hoped Sora had found a nice corner to hide in as the gallery got full.

“He said that?”

Her tone caught him by surprise; he stopped looking around for Sora and looked down at her instead. He couldn’t fathom why she was staring at him like he was a puzzle. “Uh, not really?”

It was true, Sora had never expressly _said_ it. Riku just put it together, from how often Sora said he didn’t like crowds or going out to bars or bookstores and any of Kairi’s softball games. It seemed like he mostly went to work, met a few people on campus, and did exorcisms; beyond that, he was constantly in the house. It seemed very lonely to Riku. “I just - it seemed like he didn’t like crowds?”

“I – oh.” Something unreadable and sad crossed Xion’s face. “No, I haven’t seen him.”

“I’ll find him,” Riku assured her, hoping to make that expression disappear.

It worked; she smiled and patting his shoulder. “I don’t doubt it,” she said, and then turned back to Naminé.

Riku started pushing through the crowd towards the back, where there were less people. He wasn’t sure at all what Xion was talking about. Sora hadn’t told him anything, but he didn’t go to Kairi’s games no matter how much he wanted to. He was practically a _chef_ and he refused to go to the store alone. 

Riku didn’t take it personally. He might consider them his best friends, but he’d known them less than a year. He didn’t know how long Sora had been carrying around his fear, but he hadn’t ever even said it to Riku, which meant he probably wasn’t comfortable enough yet to have Riku be the only one with him in crowds. But Naminé couldn’t be right now, and Xion and Kairi were surrounding her because they always revolved around each other, so Riku would be with Sora. 

It was the natural state of things.

“Sora!” Riku called, spotting him pressed against the back wall, fussing with his necklace like he always did when he was nervous. His heart went double-time at the relieved smile Sora gave him, the way his eyes lit up. 

“Riku!” Sora said happily, making a little space on the wall for him. “Did you see Naminé’s art?”

“I - yeah, she’s amazing.” She really was. He could hardly believe her fantastical scenes were made with just two hands. He could still see her biggest piece, stretching to the ceiling, something orange and red and blue and pink that resembled a meadow where Riku would love to take a picnic, but also possibly could be the ocean, maybe even the sky. It was a bit of an optical illusion, hard to tell, which Riku loved.

“She is,” Sora sighed, leaning against Riku’s shoulder. Riku tried very hard to act casual, he wasn’t sure he succeeded. He was never sure he succeeded but Sora hadn’t said anything yet. He could just be that oblivious, though. “I’m so happy it going well, she was talking about selling one of them.”

He could barely hear the sound of Sora’s laughter over the sound of the crowd. He wanted to hear it. “Do you want to get some air?”

Sora nodded, so Riku grabbed his hand, which was warm against his palm. Sora happily twined their fingers together as Riku started weaving through the crowd. Sora kept close to his back, one hand on Riku’s shoulder as he followed the path Riku forcibly created until they could feel the cool spring air pouring through the front doors.

Sora took a huge breath as they pushed out of the crowd until they were outside in the crisp winter air. “Thanks.” He didn’t let go of Riku’s hand, instead stepping a little closer so that Riku would block him from the wind. It had gotten cold while they were inside, winter not _entirely_ ready to give up. “I hate crowds.”

Riku shivered. “I know.” Sora wrinkled his nose and then magic tingled through Riku’s fingers as warmth spread its way up his palm, searching its way through his whole body. Riku sighed, much more comfortable. Sometimes it was very convenient to have a witch for a friend.

Sora looked at him, stopping on the step above Riku so that they were nearly the same height. “You know?”

“Well, you always say,” Riku said, because he thought if he provided the proof, Sora might stop speaking and wouldn’t be embarrassed about it. And also, the evidence was all so minute and impossible to notice, Sora would definitely realize Riku had stronger feelings than friendship in his heart if he thought about for more than five seconds. If Riku could just stop him from thinking about it for five seconds- 

Sora’s startled grin was white again the dark of the night. That was all Riku could see of him, his grin, as the light from inside flooded around his silhouette. “Did you come find me because you worried about me, Ri_iiii_ku.” He sounded giddy, like a kindergartener teasing his friend. 

Riku huffed. “No.”

“I think you did,” Sora cooed, bouncing up and down. He was giggling now too, laughter coming out as smoke. “You don’t have to say it, I know the truth.”

He was always laughing, always teasing. Always doing silly things like warming Riku’s hands up and making him feel light. Riku loved him impossibly.

He felt weak-kneed for a second. He’d never thought about it as love before. It had been there in the back of his mind where he’d firmly avoided it, where he pushed all the things he ignored. He had a _crush_ on Sora, he had _feelings_ for Sora, all that was easier to think and stomach than love.

But he was falling in love with Sora.

He looked down at their joined hands. Sora was still waiting for him to respond to his gentle teasing, smile firmly in place. Doing anything, Riku knew, would be the mother of all bad ideas, but wasn’t he supposed to be trying, trying to be better at sharing and not locking his feelings away? Sora had said as much to him a thousand times over the past six months. And wasn’t there something in the fond way Sora looked at him, head tilted, soft smile?

“I,” he interrupted, “Yeah.”

Sora lit up at his confirmation, bouncing up and down even more, if that were possible. Riku snorted and reached out a hand, putting it heavily on Sora’s shoulder to try and keep him in place. It worked; Sora stilled. Riku could feel his pulse under his thumb, could feel the way he swallowed. “You can go back inside if you want,” Sora said softly, licking his lips. “I’m fine alone.”

Riku moved his hand slowly, sliding it up to Sora’s jaw. Sora still didn’t move away. If anything, he seemed to lean into the touch, his cheek soft under the arch of Riku’s thumb. “I’ll stay.”

When he leaned down to kiss Sora, Sora rose up to meet him, his free hand fisting in Riku’s shirt.

It was better than Riku had imagined; their lips slotted together perfectly like they’d done this a thousand times before. Sora’s lips were soft and insistent. He was pulling Riku closer. Riku felt almost dizzy, like he could fly, like he could melt, like he had been struck by lightning-

“Hey, guys - _oh_. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

Sora broke away at Kairi’s intrusion. His eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed - Riku had done that. His lips were red and Riku had done that too. His own lips were probably the same, and they couldn’t stop smiling. “It’s fine,” Riku called.

Sora blinked a few times, slowly, clearly trying to gather his wits about him, before he looked over at Kairi, who was standing on the top of the steps with her hand pressed over her mouth. “Oh, yeah, it’s fine,” he added hastily, which was a lie, because the smile was fading from his face. “Um, I’ll be inside in just a minute, Kairi, okay?”

Riku’s stomach dropped. Sora sounded unusually serious. Kairi must have picked up on that too, because instead of teasing them, she thankfully disappeared inside, the door closing with a heavy thunk.

Sora dropped Riku’s hands. The warmth disappearing, the cold rushing back in stronger than ever. Maybe it was just colder now because Riku knew what he was missing. It was the greatest indicator of everything, that Sora _dropped_ his hands. Riku must have seriously messed up. Made an incorrect assumption somewhere along the line. “Riku-”

Riku held up one of his newly vacated hands to ward off the excuses. “It’s fine,” he lied, already pushing himself farther away. “I can read context clues, okay? I’ll see you back at home.”

“Riku, _wait_-” Sora called after him, but Riku was already moving, taking the steps too at a time. He chanced a glance backwards, but like he expected, Sora was frozen on the stairs, clearly unsure if he should follow. He looked like he wanted to, but Kairi was waiting just inside the door, Riku could see her through the glass. Sora wouldn’t abandon Naminé on her big night, the way Riku was doing.

Sora didn’t follow. Riku had known he wouldn’t. That didn’t make it hurt any less.

By the time Riku reached their home, running the whole way - and he’d hate himself for that tomorrow, for not stretching, but then he had much bigger, more pressing problems to deal with currently - he’d calmed down, just a little bit.

It was still sad to walk into the house. He didn’t bother with the lights, just walked up the stairs and threw himself, fully dressed, on his bed.

He _knew_ he had known better, but his stupid heart had won out. Hadn’t he tried to make sure this wouldn’t happen? Hadn’t he _known _that this was how it would go? He’d been too caught up in the way Sora smiled at him. Sora smiled at everyone like that, he cared about everyone like that. Riku wasn’t special, he’d just allowed himself to get caught up in the feeling of people enjoying his company. And now he’d ruined it. 

He didn’t cry because he didn’t allow himself to cry ever, not even when charming young men broke his heart, but he did stare at the ceiling, arms crossed, unable to stop thinking about the kiss. He couldn’t bring himself to regret it, really, because it had been so wonderful, like everything he’d never known he was dreaming. He regretted everything after, and he regretted making the decision to actually kiss Sora, but the kiss itself - well, if this was all he’d ever get, he’d cherish the memory.

He really had thought - he _knew_ that Sora had been kissing back. He wasn’t so completely blinded by idiotic love that he could imagine that. Until they’d been interrupted, Sora had been kissing back, smiling, warm fingers on the nape of Riku’s neck, guiding him closer.

Riku groaned. That didn’t matter. Maybe Sora just hadn’t been thinking, moving on instinct. 

His chest felt tight.

He heard, later, when Sora come home. Naminé, presumably, was out with Xion, celebrating her show, and Riku truly hoped they’d had a wonderful time. For both his sake and theirs, he hoped Sora and Kairi had kept quiet about everything that had happened on the steps outside the gallery. He didn’t want to ruin Naminé’s big night.

“Riku?” Sora called softly. He tapped on the door. “Riku, can we talk?”

_Absolutely not_. Riku shoved his head under his pillow, but he could still hear Sora. The walls were thin in this old house. He heard another quiet tap, then, “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Then, when Riku didn’t respond - “Okay.” and Riku heard his door shut behind him.

Riku fell asleep like that, alone.

\-----

He woke up late in the morning, probably because he’d spent so much time lying awake and turning the events of the entire night over and over in his hand, a dance he thought he’d known the steps to and then realized he was completely wrong. While Sora was in the shower, he snuck into the other bathroom and borrowed a guest toothbrush just so he wouldn’t have to run into Sora in the hallway. Really, this was going to be just as horrible as he imagined.

He allowed himself to spend ten minutes wallowing, his mouth minty fresh. He thought about carving something, but usually when he carved this angry, he ended up slicing his thumb open. So he opened his laptop and started looking for new places to live, which was probably more painful then accidentally slicing open your thumb. It… hurt more than he’d expected. He’d really grown to love the little house, and how bright it was. He liked to see Sora taking care of the front yard or mowing the lawn, and he liked the patch of sunlight the living room got in the afternoon that warmed him up. He liked living here. And when he left, he’d also be leaving Naminé and Xion and Kairi, who all had been so nice to him but would side with Sora no matter what, even if Riku had been in the right. Which he wasn’t.

It was almost dinner when someone knocked on Riku’s door. Riku hadn’t heard Naminé come back yet, so it had to be Sora. “Riku?”

“I’m not here,” Riku called.

Sora let out a sigh, audible even through the heavy door. “Riku, I need to talk to you. It’s _really_ important.”

Riku stared at the ceiling for a second. Sora sounded serious. Really serious. He wasn’t a boy who sounded serious often and Riku had made him sound serious twice in under twelve hours. “Come in.”

Sora did. He didn’t look like he’d gotten much sleep last night either, there were deep circles under his eyes. He kept tugging at his necklace. “Hey,” he said softly. “I, uh. I want to apologize for last night.”

Riku groaned. “Please don’t.” He wouldn’t be able to bear it if Sora did. “It’s not your fault, okay? It’s mine. I’m the one with feelings, not you, and - I’ll deal, okay, I’ve been looking for other apartments so-”

“No, don’t do that!” 

“Uh - what?”

Sora shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Will you take a walk with me?” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Just to the store.”

Riku stared at him. “To the store?”

“Or the park, or campus, I don’t care. Just - I need to explain something. About why I said no.”

“You really don’t have to explain.”

“Yes I do.” There was no room in his tone for argument. “Come on.”

He clearly wasn’t going to go away. And while it still stung a little bit, to see him, to _know_ that he knew what Riku felt - Sora was acting normal. Well, normal enough, he was clearly nervous, but at least he wasn’t _avoiding _Riku, and Riku should show him the same courtesy. So Riku followed him downstairs, grabbing his jacket and his shoes from the doorway, shoving his keys in his pocket. 

Sora was bouncing around him, clearly full of anxious energy, as Riku locked the door behind them. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Okay,” Riku said, following his down the sidewalk. He could see the path they were talking was the one to the park nearby, which Riku sometimes sappily thought of as _their_ park. It was the one where he’d first been shown the spirit world and it was the one with the running trails where Sora proved he had infinite stamina. “So?”

Sora shook his head. “Not yet.”

The second they crossed into the park, Riku asked, “Now?”

Sora glared at him, but it didn’t work since he was smiling too, clearly seeing that Riku was _trying_ to be a jerk about it. “Soon. Let’s get some ice cream.” He pointed to the little shop at the edge of the park. He tugged Riku along by the wrist - not the hand like he would have done yesterday, before Riku had opened his traitorous mouth and let everything go to shit.

Sora banged through the door so that the little bell above just went absolutely wild. “Excuse me, two fudge bars?” The man behind the counter ignored him. “Two fudge bars?”

Still nothing. “Hey,” Riku growled. “Stop ignoring him!”

The man looked up, an expression of complete surprise on his face. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” he said. “I must not have heard you. What would you like?”

“Two fudge bars,” Sora said. The man didn’t react.

“Two _fudge bars_,” Riku repeated through gritted teeth.

Sora held out the money. The man ignored it. What a jerk. Riku took the money from Sora and passed it to the man and in turn gave him their two wrapped fudge bars.

“He was so rude,” Riku mumbled.

“He wasn’t rude.” Sora took a huge bite out of his bar. Riku refrained from wincing; he just didn’t see how Sora’s teeth could handle that. “He just can’t see me.”

Riku frowned. “You’re not that short.”

Sora elbowed him. “I’m not short at all, asshole.”

Riku snickered. “Whatever you say, Fun Size.”

“Riku, I’m _trying_ to be serious!” He was grinning, though.

Riku took a bite of his fudge bar. “Okay, sorry, what?”

“Just to warn you, I’m about to scream,” Sora said serenely. Riku had just a second to think _what the fuck _before Sora really did just tip his head back and _scream_. It echoed around the shop until Riku slapped a hand over Sora’s mouth, aghast.

“Sora!” Sora coughed a little bit into Riku’s palm. “Oh my god, we’re in -” he was about to say _public_, but he was looking around, embarrassed, trying to see if anyone was going to have them kicked out and no one was even looking, so the words never came. How could no one be looking at them? “What?”

“They can’t see me,” Sora informed him. He held the door open for Riku. “No one can.”

“They can’t _see_ you?” Riku demanded, right as Sora purposefully stood in the path of something walking their way. The man barreled right into him, sending Sora into Riku’s chest. Riku caught him, wrapping his arms around Sora’s shoulders before remembering he wasn’t supposed to do that and let go like he’d been burned. “Sora, what’s going on?”

“I’m telling you,” Sora insisted. “I - do you remember my curse?”

As if Riku could forget. “Your - of course I remember your curse. You said it was a price. I - people seeing you was the price?”

Sora nodded. “Only people who can see the spirit world can see me.”

Riku blinked. “You’re _dead?_” But he looked so alive. Riku could feel his warmth, feel him _breathing_.

Sora snorted. Riku really couldn’t see what was so funny about it. “No, I’m not dead. The price I paid was becoming part of the spirit world, that’s all. I’m not a ghost. I have an Instagram and everything.” He steered Riku towards one of the park benches, which Riku collapsed on gratefully. His fudge bar was held with limp fingers and Sora swooped in to save it before it hit the ground. “I’ll, uh, give you a minute?”

“Thanks,” Riku mumbled, head in his heads. It didn’t take him very long before he said, “But they can’t see you?”

Sora smiled at him. It was an incredibly sad smile; Riku hated to see it on his face. “No.”

“But - why?”

Sora started twisting one of the studs in his ear as he talked. He always was in motion. “Kairi, um - like five or six years ago, she got really sick. Magically sick, dark spirits were actually _pulling_ her light and magic out of her, it was _awful_. And - this was the price I paid to save her. Living in the spirit world.” He shrugged. “Magic always comes at a price.”

Riku felt sick. “That’s why you can’t go to the grocery store? And didn’t graduate? And why you work odd jobs - how do you even get money for rent?”

Sora gave him a grin, and it actually seemed real. “You’re so practical, Riku, is that the first thing you think about?” Actually, Riku had no idea where the thought had come from. Shock, probably. “You know Xion and I do exorcisms. It was what I did before everything happened, and I can still talk to spirits, so -”

“So Xion can see you.” 

It was a stupid question, since Riku had literally seen Xion and Sora interact hundreds of times, but Sora clearly didn’t begrudge him his stupid questions at the moment. He just nodded. “Yup! Some people can, if they’re really attuned to the spirit world, but most people who can see me don’t know I’m not all here.”

Riku reached over and squeezed Sora’s hand, just to make sure that he was really still there, not a dream or a curse or something evil trying to turn Riku’s thoughts. He felt solid. Riku could see the lines of his hand, the new tattoo of the moon and sun on his wrist. He could see Sora’s untied shoelaces. Surely if this was a nightmare, he’d have tied shoes. “That seems really lonely.”

Sora grinned at him. It was a little sad but strong. Just how unbreakable was he? How unbreakable could a person _be_, without – without being in the world? “I got you guys,” he said. “And Aqua at the shop, and there’s this really nice elderly couple downtown who always give me good luck charms -”

“A world isn’t seven people, Sora.”

“But they love me,” Sora said simply. “That’s all I need.”

It was hard to look at him smiling. He didn’t seem that sad about it at all. Knowing him, he was probably just perfectly happy to keep his circle small and pay the price, and he probably didn’t think it was a price at all, because it had saved Kairi’s life. The world kept going, the people in the park kept walking by, and none of them would ever know there was a boy sitting beside Riku on the bench, a boy Riku loved, hopelessly.

“I can’t believe Naminé really wasn’t kidding about the ghost.” It was a stupid thing to say, but it made Sora laugh, head thrown back in delight, so he was glad he’d said it. “I - so this is why you won’t say yes?”

“That’s why I _can’t _say yes,” Sora said softly, touching Riku’s shoulder. It grounded him. Reminded him that Sora was still there, was still a person, even if the world ignored him. He was still Sora. “I want to. But it wouldn’t be fair, Riku.”

Some part of Riku’s brain was singing _he likes me, he likes me, he likes me_ but Riku quashed it down, because Sora was still trying to reject him, only this time it was for a stupid reason. “It’s not fair to _you_, to be like this!”

Sora shrugged. “It’s not so bad.” He even looked like he believed it. “Really. I mean, it’s kind of inconvenient, because I can’t live anywhere without a roommate, and I know Nami and Xion are going to want to move in together someday without me - that’s not the point, though. The point is, it’s really not that bad!”

“The world is _ignoring _you.”

“I chose it.” Sora’s shoulders were straight and firm; Riku’s own shoulders carrying the weight of this would have been slumped. “I don’t regret it. But you’re going to want someone who can be with you, Riku, I mean really. I don’t even have, like, a salary or a way to own a house or any of that important stuff. I can’t order pizza on the fucking _phone_. I don’t want that for you.”

Riku couldn’t care less about that, currently. What he wanted, most currently, was to wrap Sora up in a hug and let him feel everything he wanted to feel and not put on a brave face. “That doesn’t matter to me at _all_, Sora, all that matters is you.”

“Actually, Riku...” Sora looked down at the empty popsicle stick in his hand. “I’m not even sure you’ll be able to remember me after this. I dunno why you’re able to see me now, you didn’t used to be able to.”

“I - I used to not be able to see you?” Riku blinked. “The curse took - did I _know_ you before?”

Sora let out a small, bitter laugh, the most un-Sora-like thing he’d done all day. Even the sad smiles had still been strong, but the laugh suddenly utterly desperate and broken. “We used to be friends,” he said. “Back in Destiny Islands. Best friends. Actually -” he reached into his pocket for his wallet and from it pulled out a little strip, from a photo booth. It was Sora and Riku, clearly a lot younger. High school, maybe. They were making silly faces at the camera and giving each other bunny ears. They looked so happy. “The curse put me in the spirit world. All of me, even my past. Back then, you just - you couldn’t see me and then your memories were affected, so you left for college and you didn’t come back. I don’t know why you can see me now.”

Riku felt like he should be surprised, and somewhere in his heart, there was a dull reaction, but all he could think about was how familiar Sora had always seemed. How Riku had trusted him immediately when Riku wasn’t a person who trusted.

He pressed a hand to his forehead, which ached. He hated to know that his memories couldn’t be trusted, but it did kind of explain why Riku could remember being best friends with Kairi and then, a month before he’d gone off to college, basically stopped talking to her. He had never been able to remember why he’d done that. Every time he’d tried to think about it, his head started to pound. Now he realized it was probably the magic – the curse – working around Sora. Riku wished he could remember any of this, because Sora sounded so sad for something he couldn’t even remember doing, something that he knew wasn’t his fault but he still felt guilt for. All he could remember was - wait. 

“We carved our initials into the paopu tree.” He remembered that. He remembered finding the initials in a little heart, right where eye level would have been when he was a kid, and he remembered doing it, remembered the barest hints of a boy he had loved. He remembered how they’d done this to prove that Riku leaving wouldn’t change anything. “I found it when I went back home, right after I graduated.”

The day after, actually.

It was hard to reconcile the trace of the boy Riku could barely recall with Sora, who was real and sitting here and holding his hand, but Riku _knew _that had been Sora. He didn’t have a single memory of their time together other than sharing that paopu fruit, and even that, he couldn’t recall the boy’s face, only that the sun was shining on him and they were happy.

They were seventeen and felt invincible. Riku hadn’t - he didn’t _know_ that when he’d left, he was leaving something behind. He couldn’t even remember if he could have stopped this from happening.

Sora gaped at him. “Yeah, we did.” The smile crept back onto his face, secretive and soft. “That’s its own kind of magic. Maybe it did this.”

“I’m glad it did.” Riku squeezed Sora’s hand, gently.

“Riku -”

“Just let me have this.”

“Ok, but only right now.”

“What about until we get home?”

Sora tried to hide his smile. “I’ll give you until Peach Street.”

“Appleblossom Street.”

“Okay, but Appleblossom is the wrong direction, so you’ve cut yourself off by a block.”

“Wait-” Riku protested, laughing as Sora pulled him off the bench. He hated - loved - that Sora could make him laugh even when he felt like this. Being around Sora always felt like this, like he was lighter. More himself. “Sora, I’m serious!”

“I know.” Sora kicked a rock, sending it down the sidewalk until it hit the post of a mailbox. “But Riku, you probably won’t even remember me or be able see me tomorrow. The curse doesn’t like people too and you don’t have magic-”

“What about if I remember you?”

“What?”

Slowly, so slowly, Riku lifted his hand to Sora’s cheek. So slowly that Sora could have turned away if he wanted to, but he didn’t. He hadn’t last night and he wasn’t now, he just let Riku turn his face until he could see Sora’s blue, blue eyes. They were scared, that’s all. Not angry, not desperate, not full of hate. Just scared. “If I remember you. Sora, I really - I really don’t care about the rest of it. I don’t even have friends that aren’t your friends, I didn’t like a single person in my college, I’m not - I’m not outgoing, like you. If I remember you -”

“I-”

“I’m going to remember you,” Riku said firmly as they reached the porch of their house. He couldn’t forget Sora. Who would cook him breakfast and cheer him up? Who would Riku tease? “I’m going to - I - I can’t _not_.”

Sora hesitated then leaned up and pressed his lips to Riku’s, just a quick spark of electricity jumping between them. Riku leaned it but had barely had a chance to register that Sora had kissed him - _him_ \- before Sora was pulling back. “I really want to say yes, Riku.”

Riku already knew the answer before he asked. “But you’re not.”

“I’m not.”

“Rejecting a guy twice in twelve hours is _harsh_,” Riku said, because he really thought out of the two of them, Sora was getting the worse deal and he wanted to make Sora keep smiling. Ideally, he wanted to make Sora smile forever, but Sora seemed so sure Riku wouldn’t remember him. Who knew how Riku’s past might be rewritten? Not just Sora being erased, but maybe he wouldn’t remember Naminé or Xion or Kairi the same, either. He hated this whole stupid thing.

The corner of Sora’s mouth turned up, just a tiny bit. “I’m a heartbreaker.” And then he left Riku outside his room and closed the door behind him.

Riku’s door was open and he could see the setting sun through the windows. This room had belonged to him for almost a year and it finally looked it, too. He had pictures on the dresser and he’d finally bought a lamp last month so he could stop sitting at his desk and squinting at the bright screen because he was too forgetful to stand up and turn on the overhead lamp.

He hesitated then reached under his bed, pulling out a dusty photo album. His mother had insisted he take it with him to college and take it with him here, and he was grateful for it now. He flipped it open.

He didn’t know what he expected to find, but it wasn’t to find Sora on nearly every page. He squinted at a picture of them as toddlers, Riku wear a Mickey Mouse onesie. Sora was chubby and his hair was out of control, and he was crying while Riku patted his head.

They’d really known each other their whole lives. Riku had looked in this album once or twice before, but he’d appeared to be alone in all the pictures. Him alone on a blanket, him alone standing on the beach with his feet in the water, him alone at his prom and him alone at high school graduation.

The curse had removed his best friend from these photos, made it so Riku was incapable of seeing his face. But here they were, proof undeniable. There were braided friendship bracelets they’d made for each other and the certificate of best friendship that one of them had definitely made in kindergarten. Sora had his arm slung around Riku in his prom pics, laughing with matching ties, and Sora was giving him bunny ears at his graduation, and how could Riku forget this?

How could Sora be okay with letting it happen again?

He was moving before he was even thinking about, throwing open his own door and lighting the hallway up orange. He slammed his first into Sora’s door three times. Sora opened it almost immediately, brows pinched together with confusion. “Riku, what’s-”

“I’m going to remember you,” Riku interrupted him, shoving the picture album into Sora’s hands. “That whole stupid album is full of you, and I’m going to remember you this time. I’ve been trying to remember for _ages_, I never went home because it was missing something and-” he growled in the back of his throat. “I’m not going to let you be some stupid savior, okay? You already did that.”

“I don’t know what you’re-”

“I know you.” Riku jabbed a finger against Sora’s chest. “I might not remember all twenty-four years of you, but I know you, and I know you’re trying to protect me and you won’t say it but I know you’re sad and you don’t want me to be sad but I get to make that decision, okay? _I _get to decide if it’s too much for me, and right now, I don’t think it is. You can just - you can’t just let me _not_ date you because you think there’s a chance it’ll turn out poorly, okay?”

The corner of Sora’s mouth was curling up. “No?”

“_No_,” Riku said emphatically. “That’s what being in a relationship is all about, right? Trust.”

Sora’s mouth fell open just slightly. “Damn,” he muttered. “That’s a low blow.”

Riku took in a deep breath, trying to keep from panting. “Did it work?”

“Do people ever tell you you’re _too stubborn_?”

“Something tells me I learned it from you,” Riku countered. He kept searching for the minute expression on Sora’s face that would tell him he was getting through that thick skull. Anything. Anything, so long as it proved that Sora was getting over his savior complex, anything that proved he was going to let Riku in and -

_There_. Sora’s eyes were twinkling like he was trying not to smile. “You are definitely more stubborn than I am.”

“So then you should just give up, because I’m winning this argument.”

Sora took a step closer. Riku hardly dared to breathe. “I guess you are.”

When Sora kissed him, hands hot like a brand on Riku’s jaw, pulling him in, it tasted like victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> something i forgot to mention is that 1) namine's father is definitely DiZ and 2) he is evil and 3) her magic is really cold and bleak and almost icy (think about how castle oblivion feels to walk in) and she hates it, a little bit, because she doesn't want to be that person. that's why she likes plants so much!
> 
> also she's a tattoo artist cause im weak for nami with tattoos. i get the feeling Diz is into "proper magic" and not new fangled magic, like tattoos or anything, and he made namine go to college for a traditional education. she'll definitely end up at the tattoo parlor fulltime


	4. Chapter 4

Spring turned into summer, which meant that Riku’s hands got sweaty when Sora insisted on holding them, which was all the time now. Sora seemed to take a lot of pride in rivaling Naminé and Xion for most affectionate, but then again, he didn’t have to worry about people _seeing_ him. 

And also, Riku didn’t really mind. If Sora was going to be affectionate in the aisle of the grocery store, then that meant Riku got to be affectionate back.

They went to Kairi and Naminé’s graduation, cheering like absolute mad men when they made her way across the stage, throwing up a victory sign. Naminé’s father, a gruff man with a neatly trimmed beard and a permanently displeased expression, showed up and took a few mandated pictures. Riku got to see Kairi’s father, the mayor of Destiny Islands, who shook his hand and guffawed and made lots of boring adult comments about much Riku had grown and why don’t you come back sometime, son? Riku had no plans to do that, of course.

Sora cried, of course. Even Kairi didn’t cry, but Sora bawled, ensuring that he’d had red eyes in every single picture he was in. “It doesn’t matter, no one’ll see me,” he said brightly when Naminé pointed it out, which only he would be able to take as a positive, of course. He definitely wouldn’t have care even if he could be seen either; Sora was just like that. Unapologetic.

They took one of what Riku’s privately started referring to as the family. Sora’s arm was around Kairi’s waist, and she was leaning on Xion. Naminé had her arm looped through Riku’s elbow and Sora was looking up at him and grinning when Kairi’s older brother finally got annoyed with them and snapped the photo without warning.

“Axel!” She whined, and he obligingly took a few more.

Sora put a copy of it on their fridge with a little fish magnet. It was not the greatest photo: Naminé’s eyes were closed and Xion had forgotten to take off her sunglasses, so if you looked closely, you could see the reflection of Axel and the camera in them. Riku’s cheeks were turning red from the sunburn he’d already managed to get from the three hours in the sun.

But they looked happy.

\-----

Riku was holding Sora’s hand, picking at the peeling skin on his nose, waiting for the bus stop when he realized, “Wait, do people just think I’m talking to myself?”

Sora laughed at him, nearly dropping the milkshake he’d gotten at the diner they’d just visited, since Sora was the type of person to take dates to old diners and Riku was the type of person inexplicably charmed by it. Riku felt himself laughing too, even if he didn’t know what was so funny. Sora was just contagious like that. “No, Riku, they don’t, but - can you _imagine_ how funny that would be?”

“It’s not funny!” Riku protested, still laughing even as he automatically ducked his head so Sora could press a kiss to his cheek. Funny how it only took a few months to adjust to belonging to someone. He’d have thought it would be kind of awkward, suddenly dating your roommate, but then Sora had always hung all over him anyways even before they were dating, and also Riku was fairly certain the word _awkward_ wasn’t in Sora’s vocabulary. Probably even before he’d gone invisible.

“No, no, that’s not how it works.” Sora patted his arm comfortingly, his fingers cool from holding the milkshake. “It’s like - I’m not noticeable. Like, people see me but it’s instantly forgettable. They see you standing here but the magic just immediately erases that recollection, right? It’s like, impossible for them to hang on to the memory of seeing me, so they just think they see nothing or they think you’re alone, right? That’s how a lot of the spirit world is hidden, actually. People’s eyes just slide right over it and they see what they want to see, you know?”

“I don’t know, at all, what you mean,” Riku said firmly. At Kairi’s gradation, no one knew anyone, so Riku hadn’t really been able to figure it out. No one had tried to sit in the seat that Sora was in, so he’d figured maybe they thought there was a bag there or something, but people _did_ run into him on the street, so it frankly made no sense.

It did explain a _lot_, though. After a pretty extensive make-out session that first night _and_ after Naminé had broken it up, coming home and yelling about how they were stupid, Sora had made them both grilled cheeses, heavy on the cheese and the butter. It was pretty late, all the stars were out, and they’d eaten the grilled cheeses on the back porch. And Sora had talked.

He talked about having to leave Destiny Islands when Kairi did, because she was the only one who could remember him, remember their shared past. He talked about accidentally finding Aqua’s shop because she’d run into him and he’d nearly cried, because she was the first new person in years to see him. He talked about the spirits at the park who he liked and he talked about some of the exorcisms he’d performed and he talked about how he kept seeing a girl whose mother was haunting her in the grocery store but he couldn’t figure out a way to help her.

Riku didn’t think he’d been able to talk like this in a long time.

Despite that, Sora did not let it get him down. He seemed absolutely incapable of it. And it wasn’t that weird, actually, once Riku became accustomed. People on campus had never interacted with Sora, not, as Riku had assumed, because people just didn’t care, but because they couldn’t see him. And now that Riku was dragged along to the grocery store, he got used to people assuming he was shopping alone.

It explained why Sora was always bobbing around all the time instead of walking. People would just plow into him if he wasn’t careful. Slowly Riku was getting used to his world. He’d thought he’d known it before, but now he was truly getting a glimpse.

Sora even kept asking him to come by the store when he was working, which was pretty exciting, since Riku’s interest in magic hadn’t … exactly gone down since dating Sora. It had probably gone up. 

The first time Riku had gone in, toting Chinese because Sora couldn’t order take-out over the phone and Riku had an hour and a half before his part-time job at the campus library started, Aqua had smiled at him so smugly Riku actually felt _nervous_.

Riku returned her smile, suddenly very aware of the fact that he hadn’t seen her since she’d told him he had magic on his hands - magic Sora had confirmed was partially his. “I think it’s mixed with the paopu fruit too,” he’d said conspiratorially, while Riku tried to focus on his words instead of his hands tracing the sensitive lines of his palms. Aqua certainly knew by now they were dating. Even Riku’s mother didn’t know they were dating, then again, Sora’s social circle was much bigger and his filter much smaller than Riku’s. “Um, hey.”

Her grin grew even wider, looking far too smug for anyone’s good. “He’s in the back room.”

After a few months, though, she barely acknowledged him, just gave him a lazy wave. Sora was in the back. Sora had his head bent over the table, painting something intricate on a piece of clean white cloth, but he jerked his head up, eyes unfocused, as Riku approached. “Riku!”

“Hey.” Riku held up the take-out. Sora’s eyes lit up even more, if possible.

“Thank you,” he cooed, holding his hands out to take it. When Riku passed it over, Sora rewarded him with a kiss. “Aw, you’re blushing.”

“It’s hot in here,” Riku lied, taking the seat Sora gestured him to. “What’s up?”

“I didn’t expect you to be so fast, I’m supposed to have someone coming in,” Sora said, pushing aside the cloth. It looked like half-done spell work. Riku rescued it from falling on the ground as Sora dug into his lo mein, wondering if dirt or dust on a spelled cloth would alter it somehow.

“I can go-”

“No,” Sora whined, grabbing onto Riku’s shirt. “I miss you.”

Riku tried not to grin. “You saw me two hours ago.”

“So I can’t miss you?”

“I guess you can,” Riku conceded. Sora rewarded him with another kiss and damn the clients and the take-out, Riku would happily do this all day. Even if he did still blush. Sora teased him, but sue him, he’d never really dated anyone before.

“Why did you want me to come by,” Riku mumbled eventually, pulling back from Sora’s lips only because his phone beeped and reminded him that he _had_ come here for a reason that wasn’t just making out.

Sora’s lips were red and he didn’t look pleased to be interrupted. “Oh.” He picked up his chopsticks again, focusing on his meal. “Well, you might get mad at me, but - uh.”

Riku frowned. “Just spit it out.” 

Sora had said things to this effect several times before, and not a single one of them had been mildly irritating, let alone enough to make Riku angry. Privately, Riku thought it might be a holdover from ridiculous things he’d gotten mad at Sora about in high school, since he knew he was kind of ass back then, but that was as far as his memory took him. He wanted to fix that.

“Aqua does a bunch of metalworking at a studio nearby.” Sora sounded like he’d get too scared to continue if he didn’t say it so fast the words blurred together and Riku frowned, trying to parse it all out. “And, um, one of her friends has a woodworking class. He’s really good, he has a whole business making tables and chests and things like that, and the waitlist to get in is pretty long, but maybe you’d like to go?”

Riku’s chest was so warm it was like the sun itself was burning inside his ribs, threatening to blot out this entire back room. “You asked her to get me in?”

Sora tugged at his necklace. “Yeah.”

Riku touched the back of Sora’s hand. “Thank you.” He hadn’t - he hadn’t even thought about doing something like that, because he was too focused on school, but suddenly he wanted more than anything to take this class. To turn his little carved birds and turtles into something more, into whatever Sora believed they could be. “I - Sora, thank you.” He leaned forward to press a kiss to Sora’s lips, in hopes that Sora would absorb from that _just_ how grateful he was. “You’re always looking out for me.”

“So you’re not mad?”

“No, of course not.”

“Because it would be okay if you were, I wasn’t trying to say that I know better than you-”

“Sometimes you do know better than me,” Riku said simply, and the look on Sora’s face was so bright that it made Riku a little sad, actually, because he hated that somewhere in the past, some version of him had made Sora a little scared to have opinions on Riku’s life. He hated that past him, for all the times Sora had bitten his lip to keep words from tumbling out whenever Riku complained about school work or woke them both up from stress dreams. Sora probably hated Riku’s major and the fact that he felt he had to do it, and he’d been keeping it in. Until now, apparently.

Sora’s grin was relieved. “Yeah, I do.” Riku pressed a thumb to the corner of his smile, which only made Sora smile more. “Oh, I’m so excited! I think you’ll really like Terra.”

As it turned out, he did like Terra, who ran a class every Monday and Thursday in the summers. It was kind of hard work and Riku’s hands were beginning to smell rather permanently of wood stain, but Terra was really excited about what he was making, and - well, so was Riku. He’d had to shuffle around his work schedule at the library, but he’d already made Sora a set of heavy wooden spoons, the type that he liked to stir with.

Sora had _oohed_ and _ahhed_ over them so much that Xion had started making fun of him, and Riku had been so embarrassed but he’d been so _stupidly_ happy. Sora used them all the time.

He didn’t think he remembered ever having a happiness so solid. Being away at college had been a fragile sort of happiness, easily broken, and Riku kept thinking this would break - that was how relationships worked, that’s how _Riku_ worked. What he and Sora had - well, it had to go sour eventually, didn’t it? Sora would get tired of his worrying or how likely he was to bottle things up and never share, which was unhealthy and bad for relationships and Riku was the problem, ok, he was always the problem-

Sora always seemed to know when his anxiety caught up to him, because he’d reach over and wrap his warm hands around Riku’s, not saying anything at all, just sitting by Riku’s side. He did a lot of things like that, practically seeming to read Riku’s mind, because he’d known Riku almost his whole life, practically, and it would be hard to let that go.

Like now, in the back of Xion’s truck, tagging along to an exorcism.

Sora and Xion were capable, of course they were, but Riku had never once had a worry-free day in his life and he just wanted to know. Sora had given him a very skeptical look that said he saw right through that, but Riku had been allowed to come, so he didn’t care. “Just don’t freak,” Sora had warned, mock-serious. “It would be embarrassing.”

Xion had jumped in before Riku could lie and say he wouldn’t freak. “For _me_,” she’d insisted, flipping her keyring around her index finger. “Not Sora, because he doesn't have a sense of shame and also because people can’t see him.”

“I would still be embarrassed,” Sora said solemnly, shouldering his backpack. He’d been packing up his bag with carefully wrapped potions and charms when Riku asked to tag along. There must have been an order to the way he organized it, but Riku couldn’t see the pattern, even looking at all the bottles and the careful way he’d set them out on the bed to look at. “I’m a celebrity in the spirit world, you know.”

“You _are not_,” Xion and Riku said in unison, which only made Sora laugh and lead them out the door, keychains on his backpack jingling merrily.

The house they went to was huge. Xion had driven them past Appleblossom Street than turned down Main, past the university and the shops to where the houses got bigger and bigger, and the amount of lawn space each house had got bigger and bigger too. Her beat-up truck and Xion herself, with her short black hair and worn denim jacket, absolutely didn’t fit in. Neither did Riku, really, something he felt self-conscious about, and Sora definitely didn’t, but Xion was right: it was near impossible for Sora to be self-conscious and that would probably be true even if he weren't invisible.

All three of them went up the sidewalk, nicely lined on each side by flowers. Xion’s heavy boots made clomping noises with every step.

Sora rang the doorbell and the door opened almost immediately. Riku hated that that meant the occupants had probably been watching for them out the window, but that irritation faded when he saw how frazzled the woman looked.

She might be _rich_, but she looked like she’d gone through hell and back.

“Hi,” Xion said, voice friendly enough. Professional, but friendly. “We’re the exorcists.”

The woman blinked at them. “Oh,” she said, like she hadn’t been expecting them, though she’d clearly been waiting right inside. “I’m Anne. Please come in.”

Sora did. She didn’t even blink when he stepped right past her, taking in the grand foyer. “Wow.” He shivered, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably, the lights of the chandelier above them scattering across his shoulder blades. “This is really strong bad energy. When was the funeral?”

Xion relayed the question to Anne, who fingered her set of pearls like a talisman. “Oh. It was two months ago.”

Xion touched her hand to Anne’s just a second. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.” The woman gave her a pale imitation of a smile. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“This way, my son - my son saw it.” Anne led them to an opulent living room, where there was a younger kid sitting, knees pulled up to his chin. He had band aids on both knees and tear tracks on his cheeks. “This is my son, Andrew,” she said, smoothing a hand over the boy’s hair. He leaned against her and she didn’t seem to mind the dirt on his shirt and hands transferring over to her cream-colored sweater. “He’s the one who saw - well.”

“Hi, Andrew,” Xion said, sitting down next to him. Sora wandered off to look at family pictures and peer down the hallway, holding his hand out like a dowsing rod. Riku hadn’t really seen him do this before, hadn’t seen his half-closed eyes and the way he leaned forward like he was fighting to hear something. “I’m Xion, and that’s Riku. Are you okay? You look pretty shaken.”

“Well, you would be too if you saw a dead person,” Andrew snapped, eyes blazing. Anne covered her hand with her mouth, clearly upset. Riku chewed on his bottom lip.

Xion didn’t seem bothered. “I do see dead people,” she said kindly. “I see ghosts all the time. They’re okay, usually, they’re just watching out for us. But your mom said your brother seemed angry?”

“He hates me.” Andrew set his chin on his knees stubbornly. “Don’t touch the piano, it was his!”

Riku frowned at him then looked over at Sora, who’d been wandered over to the sleek black grand piano. He looked over at Andrew and withdrew his hand from the keys without pressing down on a single one. He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

Whatever Anne was seeing wasn’t the same scene. She ignored Sora completely, instead the magic making some connection in her brain that was a normal conversation, not a conversation with just thin air. “Yes, none of us can play the piano,” she nodded. “But I keep waking up to hearing it being played.”

Riku suppressed a shiver. He hadn’t really dealt with ghosts. Spirits, sure, but with them, it kind of made sense that some might be a little amoral. They weren’t human, what did they care for human morality? They lived on a different place of existence, some of them thousands of years older than humans, and they flitted in and out of the human realm without thought. Sora had said they couldn’t even really die.

Andrew’s brother, though. An evil ghost, maybe. Something cold settled along the back of Riku’s neck. He couldn’t tell if it really was a ghost or just his own imagination. He trusted that Sora or Xion would _tell_ him if a ghost were caressing his neck but he still didn’t like it.

“What else?” Xion asked.

Anne cleared her throat. “He tried to drown Andrew in the _pool_.”

“Your pool or another pool?” Sora asked, crossed right in front of her to mess with some of the pictures on the fireplace. She didn’t seem bothered by it. Andrew did.

“Ours,” Andrew snapped. “Who are_ you_?”

Sora shoved his hands in his pockets, maybe so Andrew would stop looking at him so suspiciously. “I’m Sora.” Of course that wasn’t any kind of answer at all. “Do you _want_ to get rid of Jonathan, Andrew?”

Riku had a brief second of awareness that no one had said Jonathan’s name. Whoever Anne’s son was, whoever Andrew’s brother was, Sora had just plucked his name out of the very air. Maybe he had seen the ghost, right here, in this room.

“I don’t know,” Andrew said. 

“Like when he tries to hurt you? He pushed you down the stairs, right? And he yelled at you, last night, when you woke up and he was playing the piano? You tried to talk to him.”

“He didn’t listen. Jonathan _never _listened to me.” Andrew hesitated, picking at a scab on his knee. “I - he scares me, sometimes.”

Anne sucked in a gasp. “Honey, you don’t have to talk if it makes you scared. Xion, maybe he shouldn’t be here for this.”

Riku looked at Xion, who shrugged. He guessed conversations often went like this in the home of exorcisms then, with one person who could see Sora and the others who couldn’t. 

Andrew wrinkled his nose. Andrew was a sharp kid, he picked up on it immediately, and cut a look at Sora, shaking off Xion’s hand. “What did you do to my mom?”

“Nothing,” Sora reassured him. “I’m - well, I’m kind of like a ghost too, Andrew. Your mom can’t see me. She can’t see Jonathan, either, can she?”

Riku bit his lip to stop himself from arguing; he could feel a sharp pain in his chest, under his ribs, at hearing Sora call himself a ghost so cheerfully. He was alive. Riku held him every night, he’d kissed those lips, he was blessedly _alive_.

“No,” Andrew muttered sulkily, crossing his arms. “She can feel him, though.”

“Yes, I felt him,” Anne agreed, oblivious. Whatever conversation she was having, Riku didn’t know. He didn’t know how people’s minds filled in the gaps, how magic helped it along. Maybe she thought Xion was asking question or maybe she thought Andrew was offering it of his own accord. “At the pool, the wind went all cold and gusty, it got dark out - I don’t - he’s not a bad boy.”

“Is that true?” Sora asked.

Andrew frowned. “Yeah,” he said. “He taught me to swim.”

Sora clapped once. “Okay. Xion?

“We’re going to draw a magic circle,” Xion told Andrew and Anne, reaching for Sora’s backpack, which was abandoned on the couch next to her. She pulled chalk out of the front pouch. “It’ll draw Jonathan in and trap him, so we can talk to him and let his spirit move on.”

She passed the chalk to Sora, who gestured Riku over. “Can’t have Anne thinking chairs move on their own,” he said, the both of them pushing the chairs and tables out of the way until there was a big clear space in the center, where Riku and Sora rolled the rug up. 

Sora dropped to his knees, freehand drawing a perfect circle. Xion on the other side did the same, the two of them working in tandem around each other, clearly knowing their parts. Riku watched as it grew more intricate, as they added circles and triangles and intersecting lines, turning it into a power only they could read.

“So,” Anne said, clearly out of her element as chalk lines appeared all over her nice hardwood floors. She hovered around the arm of the couch, where Andrew was still sitting even though it had been shoved up against the wall. “Riku, you don’t help with the, um, magic circles?”

Riku shrugged. “Nope.” He didn’t really think telling her he didn’t have a lick of magic and was only here because he was curious and mildly worried would go over well. “Xion and Sora got this.”

Anne looked puzzled. “Who’s Sora?”

“He’s a ghost too,” Andrew piped up.

“Right,” Riku allowed, because yelling at kids for being wrong was frowned upon. “A friendly ghost. I’m just here to - to help, if needed.”

Sora snorted.

“Okay,” Xion said, standing up. She had a streak of chalk across her cheek. “Riku, keep them back.” She reached across the circle, taking Sora’s hands as Riku ushered Anne and Andrew farther away, backs against the wall. Xion and Sora bowed their heads. The circle turned a pale yellow, flaring up light, and Anne gasped.

It _was_ magical, after all.

“Who is _that_,” Anne whispered.

“That’s Sora the ghost,” Andrew whispered back.

Maybe she only saw him because of the magic, or because Andrew was holding her hand. Riku couldn’t step into her shoes and see what she saw. He didn’t know how the magic worked; he didn’t know why she was suddenly able to see him. He could see Sora and Xion, chanting under the breath, could taste paopu fruit and lightning and sunshine and the faintest taste of baked bread. He could feel his hair start to stand up from static like the two witches were about to call down a thunderstorm into this very living room.

Riku only saw… well, he saw something, at first, but it wasn’t exactly Jonathan. Or at least, not the way Jonathan had used to look and probably not the way Sora and Xion and Andrew were seeing him. No, Riku only saw the burning light. The light wavered and turned into a human-shaped creature that had everyone squinting like they were looking into the sun. It raged and emitted high-pitched screeching sounds and Andrew started crying, silently. The Jonathan-creature pushed at the boundaries of the magic circle but it was too strong, he kept rebounding with little sparks of electricity.

“Hi, Jonathan,” Xion said loudly. She sounded unfussed. Professional, like this was a business meeting and Jonathan was simply Skyping in on a bad connection. “We’re going to take care of you, okay? You’re hurting people. You’re hurting your brother, you don’t want to hurt him, right?”

The creature shrieked. The lights blew out, bulbs crackling and breaking and Anne screamed, wrapping her arms around Andrew to protect him. The sound tore at Riku’s ears and he winced, they all winced, and the whole thing was cloying and it was hard to breathe and see and _think_, what with the chaos and the light and the wind.

“I know,” Xion said sympathetically. “It hurts. It’ll be okay. Your family will be fine.”

“I promise,” Sora said, and they started chanting again. Slowly Jonathan got smaller, resolved himself into pale light, like sunlight through trees. Riku could see who he was now that the light was fading. He was transparent, but he was a good-looking teenager with broad shoulders, dressed in a neat black funeral suit. He looked at his family only for a second before he blinked out of existence.

For a second it was all quiet, deafeningly quiet, and dark. Through the windows, Riku could see the nearly full moon and the lights of the neighbor’s house next door, but the living room was completely dark. He could hear nothing but the labored sounds of Sora and Xion’s breathing and Anne’s murmuring to Andrew, who was unsettlingly quiet.

Then the magic circle, which had gone dim, flared back to life.

Riku shielded his eyes with his hands; the light was back with a vengeance. “Turn around,” he yelled at Anne and Andrew, shoving them so that their faces were towards the wall.

“What the hell?” Xion yelled. 

“I don’t know!” Sora yelled back. The light in the middle burning was rushing to life, pushing at the boundaries. It sounded like a storm. Riku slammed his eyes shut, though he could still see the light through his eyelids. “I think - Riku, what’s the date?”

“Uh, June 21st, I think. _Why_-”

He chanced a glance at Sora, who was looking at the light with a surprisingly contemplative expression. “Well, shit,” he said, right as it exploded at him. Sora pressed Riku behind him, throwing up his hand instinctively. Xion jerked Riku back, towards the wall. 

“Sora-” Riku called, panic wrapped around his heart.

“He’s fine,” Xion said breathlessly, small hands pressing against his back so that he was forced to shut his eyes and touch his forehead to the wall.

He looked over his shoulder, barely able to make out Sora’s shape - his hands were thrown out wide, shielding them all from that burning white light.

“_Fuck you_,” Sora said, teeth gritted, and Riku saw him press his arms forward, like he was pushing at a great big wind, before Xion grabbed his hair and forced him to look back the wall. Slowly the light diminished, leaving dancing spots in Riku’s vision, and then vanished. 

“It’s fine,” Sora called, and Riku was whirling around to look at him before Xion had a chance to move her hand. Sora looked over his shoulder at them all and grinned, triumphant, before his knees buckled underneath him. Riku barely managed to catch him before he hit the floor.

“Where did Sora go,” Andrew asked as Riku cradled Sora in his lap. Already his eyelids were fluttering open, a good sign.

“He’s still here,” Xion told him. “You just can’t see him anymore, because we helped Jonathan move on. An evil spirit was messing him up, okay? That wasn’t him.”

“Thank you,” Anne sobbed, throwing her arm around Xion, who stumbled under her weight. “Thank you, how much do I owe you-”

Xion patted her back awkwardly.

Riku and Sora waited in the car while Xion cleaned up the chalk and got paid. “Do you collapse often?” Riku carded his fingers through Sora’s hair, feeling the static that was still there tickling at his fingers. They were in the back seat, so that Sora could stretch out, his head in Riku’s lap, his feet up against the window.

“No,” Sora mumbled, reaching up and catching Riku’s hand. His eyes were closed. When Riku was helping him to the car, he’d been walking blind, saying he was dizzy. “It was just the summer solstice today.”

“Okay,” Riku said, because it was easier than saying _what does that mean_. Sora wasn’t in a state to be complaining right now. “Great. My heart definitely handled that stress fine.”

Sora snorted. “Sorry,” he mumbled, clearly already halfway asleep. “You wanted to come.” 

Yes, Riku had. He’d insisted, because he hated not knowing. He wasn’t sure if this was better, exactly, because now he knew how dangerous it could be and that thought clawed its way into his heart and settled but – Sora had taken care of it. Sora had seemed larger than life, facing against that ghost, face smooth and focused. He knew what he was doing, even if it was dangerous. Riku wished he never had to through this ever again but then he took that wish back, because Sora _liked_ this. He liked doing magic and he liked helping people and – Riku was just scared.

Sora was asleep by the time Xion reached the truck with their gear and payment. She didn’t seem that worried, which Riku took heart from, but he did have to carry Sora inside once Xion’s old truck turned back into their driveway, headlights painting unsettling shadows against the trees.

Naminé fussed over Sora, of course, but apparently, despite this all, he knew what he was doing, so Riku laid him in bed and crawled in with him, too wired to properly go to sleep. He just waited, curled up on his side, one hand carefully put just in between them so that his fingertips could feel the rise and fall of Sora’s chest. Not the beating of his heart, though.

“Hey,” Sora mumbled after an hour, sheets rustling as he shuffled around, folding his hand around Riku’s. Riku had been watching the hour tick by on the bedside clock, numbers turning from nine fifteen to ten twenty. He sounded utterly exhausted. Xion and Naminé had _said_ he’d been drained, but they’d also said that after a good night’s sleep, he’d be fine. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Riku mumbled, skimming his hand down Sora’s spine and settling it at his hips. He felt better when his hands were on Sora and he’d kept them to himself tonight, scared that if he touched Sora at all he’d break into a million little pieces.

“Right.” Sora yawned right in Riku’s face, eyes closing. “Love you.”

He was asleep before Riku even realized what he’d said. Figures that Sora would fall asleep the first time he’d said I love you. He was always casual about it before, doling out _I love you_’s to Naminé and Kairi and Xion, and even Riku too, before they were dating, but he’d stopped once they had, probably knowing that Riku wouldn’t be able to handle it yet.

As it was, Riku could feel his face heating up, could feel that his hand on Sora’s waist was trembling a little bit. He breathed in and out, in and out, trying to steady his breath, his hand, his heart. He didn’t know what he was so worked about; he’d known it, hadn’t he?

It was just - it was nice to hear. A year ago, Riku hadn’t expected anyone to ever say those words to him and now Sora was in his life.

It took him a minute to realize his hand has stopped trembling. He ran it gently up Sora’s side, tracing across his collarbone to rest at his heart. He loved Sora back. He absolutely loved Sora back and Sora loved him and - he could tell he was smiling like an absolute idiot but even despite how exhausted Sora was and how worried Riku had been, he was still so _happy_.

He wasn’t ready to say it back, he knew that. But - one day, he’d like to.

\-----

“Does your magic taste like paopu fruit to everyone or just me?” It was two days after Sora’s admission of love and he really was incapable of not thinking about it.

Sora snorted. “I’ve never asked,” he said. “People usually don’t talk about it. My guess would be it tastes like that to everyone.” He peered at Riku over the top of his spell book. Riku was slouched around on the couch, feet in Sora’s lap, and Sora’s book rest on the top of his ankles. His grin turned teasing. “Aw, did you think otherwise? That’s romantic.”

“I thought maybe because we’d shared one,” Riku mumbled, embarrassed. “Before.”

Sora dropped his book directly onto Riku’s ankle and Riku yelped. Sora gasped. “Shit, sorry, sorry!” He pressed his calloused thumb against the bone and Riku felt tingly magic erase the pain. “I just - I didn’t think you remembered that.”

“I do.”

“So you know that we were - we were -”

He seemed reluctant to say _dating_, so Riku danced around the subject too. “Yeah,” he said, sitting up. It put him dangerously close to Sora’s face, which looked like it was having a revelation. Riku hoped it was a good one. “I thought you knew I knew.”

“I didn’t know.” An expression slid over his face, one Riku hadn’t seen him wear before. It took him a second to identify the downcast eyes, the slight frown, as guilt. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Riku flicked his ear. “I don’t care.”

“But - I should tell you things like that,” Sora mumbled. He hadn’t even winced when Riku flicked him, tied up in his own thoughts, so Riku let his hand settled on the crook of Sora’s neck, hoping to provide him comfort. “I just thought - well, what if I tell him and that’s what makes him forget and then-” Sora trailed off, caught up in his fears.

Riku hesitated. “I don’t care,” he said, because he didn’t. “I mean, if I’m dying for some reason I don’t remember, I guess I care, but - I don’t know. I know I wasn’t … the best, in high school - don’t argue with me, I know I wasn’t, I can tell because sometimes you just - I just know you’re worried that I’m going to react like I did back then, like angry and stupid for no reason.”

Sora, because he was incapable of not interrupting, interrupted. “Riku, I don’t-”

Riku covered Sora’s hand with his mouth. “That’s not the point,” he said, because he’d gotten sidetracked. “I meant - I’m okay not remembering. You don’t have tell me things. We both grew while we apart and we can just think of this as a new start, okay?”

“The curse-”

“The curse can stuff it,” Riku interrupted. “If you not telling me details about our shared childhood lets me remember you _now_, I just really don’t care. It doesn’t bother me, okay?” Sora wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Sora?”

“Okay,” Sora mumbled, but it was faint.

Riku slid his hand under Sora’s chin, gently coaxing Sora to look at him. Riku pressed his forehead against Sora’s, their breath mingling together. “I mean it. Really.” 

It had never bothered him at all that Sora seemed to know him so well. He always was able to read Riku’s moods and he’d surprised Riku the first time Riku had done poorly on a test by making him chicken noodle soup, which Riku _loved_ to have when he felt down, and of course Sora knew that. Riku liked to feel known. He just wished that he could know Sora back, remember those little things, but - well, it didn’t matter really, those things would come with time. He didn’t have to know the past to learn them again, there was nothing stopping him from creating their future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a tiny bit of a filler chapter everyone , sorry. anyways ! magic


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its been so long everybody nanowrimo's been kickin my ass 
> 
> warning for parent death / discussions of a parent dying in this chapter

Of course nothing could stay perfect. Riku hadn’t really expected it to, but he didn’t think it would go this spectacularly badly. He had plans for the fall, okay? He’d started his classes, unwillingly. He’d had to switch out of a class on global literature and into a class on British literature, which was annoying, but the global lit class met at the same time as Terra’s woodworking class, and Riku knew which was the most important to him. But he’d gone to class and he’d met his teachers and he took his shifts at the library. He’d done everything he was supposed to. Then his brother called to inform him that their father was dying. 

Riku had gone through the two bottles of beer in the fridge and was thinking about the wine when Sora came in, hands full of various tiny jars. He was grinning, pleased to see Riku, until he saw Riku’s face and the wine in Riku’s hand and the fact that Riku was holding onto the fridge handle for support. The smile promptly disappeared. “Riku?”

“I’m fine.” He wanted Sora to smile again. He didn’t like when Sora wasn’t smiling. He reached and put his fingers on Sora’s lips sloppily, wanting the smile back. “My brother just called.”

He wasn’t _that _drunk - or maybe he was, but he’d understand why his brain hurt trying to figure out Sora’s feelings from the tiny expressions on his face while drunk - but he saw a sort of shock and hurt in Sora’s eyes before it was replaced again with worry.

“And that was bad?” Sora reached out and tried to pull the bottle of wine from Riku’s hands.

Riku held on with all his strength. “That’s _mine_!” Later, he’d be embarrassed about the whining. But it _was_ his.

“It’s not even open,” Sora told him, and when Riku looked down to check - it wasn’t, actually - Sora pulled it from his grasp and put it back on top of the fridge where the alcohol lived. Riku didn’t even know why they had wine. They didn’t have parties. Sora didn’t like parties.

“Stop it,” Riku mumbled as Sora got him a glass of water and ushered him to the couch, leaving behind all the tiny jars on the counter. He sank into the cushions gratefully, the room swimming around him. Sora had very thoughtfully provided him a straw and Riku greedily sucked down every last drop.

“Your brother called,” Sora prompted. He was sitting very close to Riku on the couch, skin hot to the touch like it always was, and this time Riku was hot too, burning up. His hair was sticking to his sweaty forehead. 

“My dad is sick,” Riku slurred. “In the hospital. Gonna die sick. I’m gonna go see him tomorrow but I _hate_ him. He didn’t - I didn’t - he _left_ me.” He groaned. He knew Sora probably knew all this but he didn’t feel all present, at the moment. Must have been the wine. Or the beer. He wasn't sure he'd had any wine.

Sora smoothed Riku’s hair away from his forehead. For once, his hands felt cool and Riku leaned into them. “I’m sorry, Riku.”

Riku opened his eyes, vision swimming, but one thing was suddenly clear. “You didn’t know I had a brother,” he said hazily, clumsily trying to caress Sora’s face. He hated putting pain on Sora’s face, he’d promised he’d never do it and he _did it_-

Sora was too good a person to laugh at how alcohol-laden his actions were. “That doesn’t matter,” he promised, pulling Riku into his hug. “What matters is how you feel right now.”

Riku would happily stay in Sora’s arms forever. He pressed his forehead against Sora's shoulder. “Drunk.”

“Good thing you couldn’t open the wine, then.” Sora started rubbing calming circles against Riku’s back.

Riku turned his head so that he didn’t mumble the words _directly _into Sora’s collarbone. “Would you go with me?”

He felt Sora stiffen. “To - to Destiny Islands?”

“You don’t have to,” Riku added hastily. Sora probably had hundreds of thousands of bed memories associated with their home; Riku _knew_ the only person who remembered their past together was Kairi, he _knew_ it, why did he ask, he shouldn’t have asked- “I just - I don’t really want to be alone.”

“Of course I will!” Sora pressed a kiss to his forehead, lips cool. “Thank you for asking.”

He probably had only asked because he was drunk, Riku realized when he woke up a few hours later with a splitting headache. The late afternoon sun leaking in past the curtains didn’t help, either, but Chirithy was a welcome weight on his chest. He startled when Riku moved and then let out a little meow. Riku scratched behind his ears, feeling strangely pleased that Chirithy liked him enough to guard him when he wasn’t feeling well, the way he always did for Sora. “Hey buddy,” Riku mumbled, shifting his weight _just_ enough to reach the bottle of water and washcloth on the bedside table.

Riku had seen enough of Sora and Xion being careless to know a medicinal compress when he saw it and it did immediately start to soothe his headache, the minty smell making him think more clearly.

Sora wasn’t in bed with him. It sounded like he was downstairs, getting started on dinner. Riku _had_ gotten started on the drinking pretty early in the afternoon, he guessed. 

He didn’t regret asking Sora to come. He’d wanted to the second he’d hung up on his brother, he’d just wanted Sora to be home, immediately. When Sora didn’t appear in the next ten seconds, he’d gone for the drinks. It had just seemed right.

If he’d been sober, he wouldn’t have asked Sora to come. Sora probably would have offered, of course he would have offered, but Riku wouldn’t have asked. He wasn’t good at it.

He slouched back down in bed, closing his eyes. No wonder Sora had been so surprised.

\-----

Riku drove even though his hands were shaking. Some irrational part of him kept thinking _of course he’d get sick as soon as classes started. _Riku was missing his Friday morning class as they spoke.

Sora was curled up in the passenger seat, head pillowed on his hand against the window. He stretched out his other hand ever so often to rest it on Riku’s shoulder, the crook of his elbow, his thigh, trying to give him some comfort. He probably didn’t know exactly what Riku needed because Riku didn’t know exactly how he was feeling. When they’d first started, early _early _in the morning, Sora had given him a sort of grimace, as if wishing he could drive and let Riku fall to pieces in the car.

But he couldn’t. So Riku drove.

It wasn’t a long drive to Destiny Islands, about an hour and a half. It was doable enough that Riku had no excuse for not visiting his mother so often, but he hadn’t seen her since he’d moved to Radiant Garden.

He didn’t intend to go see his mother this trip, either. He intended to go see his father and then be home by dinner, because _home_ was a house in Radiant Gardens with Naminé and Xion and Sora, laughing around the kitchen table or kicking each other on the couch during movie night.

It wasn’t in Destiny Islands and it _definitely_ wasn’t the town one over, where Riku’s father had moved after he’d left Riku and Riku’s mom. One over from Destiny Islands was mostly just houses on the beach, huge houses, and the people who lived there - or, more accurately, the people who had beach homes there - had to go into Destiny Islands to get groceries or go out to eat or anything. Riku considered them tourists too, even though his father had been born in and lived his whole life in Destiny Islands.

Sora was quiet most of the ride, for once, though every so often he’d remind Riku to drink some water. They’d kept the radio off. They passed the sign marker that read DESTINY ISLANDS 35 MILES when Riku said, “So my brother - I - he - um.” He quelled the urge to bash his head against the steering wheel, which would be incredibly dramatic of him and also pretty stupid, since he was driving.

The corner of Sora’s mouth curved up. “Riku, you don’t have to tell me just because you feel guilty that I don’t know.”

“That’s not why I was gonna,” Riku protested weakly, even though that was exactly why. He was probably imagining it worse than it was, because he was drunk, but Sora had looked like he’d been punched for a split second, hearing that Riku had a brother he didn’t know about.

“You’re not a good liar,” Sora informed him.

“Thanks, I think,” Riku said, taking the exit just before the turnoff for Destiny Islands. His car was the only one that turned off. September was a little past tourist season _and _wedding season, which meant the town was back to locals. Small, comfortable, not bothering to lock their back door. “I mean, but I should, tell you, because you’re here with me and -”

Sora’s hand on his wrist stopped him. “Riku, breathe.” Riku sucked in a breath. “I know I’m basically psychic but sometimes even _I _don’t know things sometimes, okay?” His tone was light, like he was talking to a scared animal. It was probably an apt comparison. “I don’t even know how you manage to feel guilty about forgetting, which is something _I _did to you.”

Riku didn’t know how he could be such a goofball and yet - always be so calm and make so much sense, be exactly what Riku needed whenever he was on the verge of a panic attack. “It’s a gift,” Riku managed to say. The town was pretty much empty, most of the occupants leaving their summer homes, which was good, because he was driving much slower than the already slow speed limit, and he wasn’t doing a great job at it, either. 

“You’re very talented,” Sora agreed, pulling Riku’s right hand off the wheel and lacing their fingers together. Probably not a good move, considering the sloppy turns Riku was making, but it made him feel a little less tense either way, so he figured it couldn’t hurt. “Just - talk if you want to, Riku, okay, not because you think you have to.”

“Okay.” Riku hung a left and pulled to a stop outside his father’s house. “Okay.”

Sora waited a moment. “Are we going in?”

“Not yet.” Riku cut the engine, staring up at the stupid house. It was like if you crossed a cute bungalow with a very ugly McMansion. “I’m remembering that I _hate_ him.”

Sora nodded. “Do you want a granola bar?”

Riku blinked, caught off-guard and realizing suddenly that he was starving. “Yeah, hit me.” 

Sora slapped a granola bar into his open palm. He took two bites before he realized not only was he hungry but he was angry, incredibly viscerally angry. “I _hate_ this stupid house. I just fucking hate it. There was _nothing_ wrong with our old house! It had - it had us. And he fucking wanted some other woman to be his wife and he left me _because _she got pregnant, I did the math, I _fucking_ \- I counted!” He took another bite, granola sticking in his throat. “I - he didn’t even _tell me_ that, I didn’t even know until last year I had a brother! _Fuck_ him.”

He was panting when he was done with his speech. He wasn’t even sure the last time he’d used so many curse words. Probably never. Sora offered him his water bottle and he guzzled half the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“So,” Sora said brightly, like Riku hadn’t just basically thrown up his emotions everywhere. “Ready to go talk to this asshole?”

God, Riku loved him. He leaned over the gear shift and captured Sora’s mouth just for a second, trying to put his thanks and a lot of other things he couldn’t say into that one kiss. Maybe Sora understood. “Let’s do it.”

The walk up to the front door was a lot less imposing with Sora by his side.

Riku’s stepmother answered the door, frowning. She gave him a limp hug, murmuring “darling thank you so much for coming” and other things that didn’t matter. She couldn’t see Sora at all as she led them through the maze of rooms. She didn’t seem keen on conversing with him, which was fine, because this was only the third time he’d met her and he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience of the last two times. They’d been pretty frigid.

Sora kept looking around in amazement at the frankly disgusting furniture and oil paintings and fancy light fixtures. It was easier to focus on him, and think about his life growing up. If it was anything like Riku’s, and it probably had been, it had been in a comfortable beach house, learning to surf, and his nose always peeling from sunburn.

“He’s in here, dear,” Riku’s stepmother said. She opened the heavy wooden door and ushered Riku in. She nearly shut the door _on_ Sora, who Riku dragged in at the last second. It was dark inside once the door closed; the curtains were drawn against the beautiful beach light and Riku stood near the door a moment to let his eyes adjust.

“Riku?”

Riku blinked a few times. He knew that voic. “Yeah, Dad, it’s me.” He could see his dad’s massive bed and hear the beep of monitors but he could barely see his father at all. He’d prefer to keep it that way, but he took a few steps towards the bed. “R called, he said you wanted me to come.”

“Your brother looks just like you, you know.”

Riku knew. His stupid father told him that every time they talked, which was rare enough that Riku could pretend otherwise. He hated hearing it and he would bet that R hated hearing it too. As if they were interchangeable by virtue of having the same stupid hair color. Riku forced himself to take a step, then another. He was squeezing Sora’s hand so hard that the other boy was probably losing circulation. He got closer and closer to the bed, until he could see his father.

He looked much frailer than he’d used to. Surrounded by all the blinking machines and covered in tubes and wires, he looked miniature, like Riku could pick him and toss him out with the garbage. He looked pretty dead already. His skin was pale and so papery thin that Riku could see his veins standing out, dark purple tracks all over his body. His hair was falling out too, all that silver hair that Riku and his brother had inherited. 

“They say you’re really dying this time.”

His father let out a long cough. “That’s what they say.” He picked at the tube in his nose. “So who’s this?”

“I - it’s Riku,” Riku repeated, his brow furrowing. “You _just_ said you wanted me to come.”

“I meant your boyfriend.”

Riku whipped his head around to look at Sora, who looked _very _surprised by this turn of events. They’d both thought they were safe from anyone being able to notice him, which was perfect, because Riku didn’t really feel like explaining to his stepmother and his brother and the various family members scattered around the house about his boyfriend. He didn’t want to talk to them that long. But he was already in the room, so. “This is Sora.” Riku gave Sora’s hand a quick squeeze. “We live together in Radiant Gardens.”

His father squinted at them both. Riku wished they didn’t have the same eyes. “I see. Congratulations.” Now that that was done, Riku’s father focused back on him. “And do you have a job?”

“I’m a graduate student.”

“So no job.”

Riku cast his eyes towards the ceiling. This was how just about conversation with his father always went. The man was still annoyed that he hadn’t gone to business school. “I work at the local library.”

“That is a job for people who can’t get a better job.”

“Your myriad displeasures with my life have all been noted _numerous_ times,” Riku snapped. His nerves were practically flayed and he’d only been in the room five minutes. He felt Sora trace something on his back and he hoped it was a calming spell.

“I don’t want to fight.”

“You _started_ it!” Sora’s hand was still tapping on his back. It _felt_ like a calming spell. He often let Sora use those on him, when he was stressed and unable to turn his brain off. Even if it wasn’t a calming spell, focusing on it _was _calming him down a little bit. He took in a deep breath, expanding his lungs. “You _always _start it, Dad, that’s why I never visit you.”

“Should you _really_ be airing these grievances in front of your boyfriend,” his father said, looking back at Sora, who hadn’t been saying anything. Mostly his eyes had just been darting back and forth like he was watching a tennis match. “Sora, would you give us a minute alone?”

Sora tilted his head up at Riku, his thumb tapping against the small of Riku’s back. “You okay?”

“I - yeah.”

Sora took him at his hesitant word, thankfully. “I’ll just be outside.” He leaned up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to Riku’s cheek, then his hands left Riku’s back. Left Riku behind.

Riku collapsed into the chair beside his father’s bed. “What is _so_ important that Sora can’t be here for it,” he said, genuinely curious. “It’s not going to stay a secret. I tell him everything.”

“Do you,” Riku’s father mused, coughing into his hand. Riku reached over to the box of tissues on the bedside table and quietly passed it over. “You - please don’t take this the wrong way, Riku, but you were not always the most forthcoming little boy. So do you really tell him everything?”

Riku opened his mouth to retort, to say _of course I do_, but the worst things about parents, sometimes, was that they did know you pretty well, even if you hadn’t had a conversation about anything more detailed than the weather in years. “I - no,” he admitted. “But I want to.”

“You should work on that,” his father told him briskly. God, even when he was emoting, he still didn’t have time for things. “Anyways, that’s not why I wanted you here, though I hope you will take that to heart. No. I want you to take care of R.”

“I’m twenty-four,” Riku said blankly.

His father made a sharp clicking noise with his tongue. “Don’t be stupid. No. I meant - I regret that you aren’t closer, and I know that’s my fault.” His father turned on his side as best he could with the tube in his nose, his face wry. Riku supposed that when were about to die, you wanted to make amends. “And I hope, once I’m dead in the ground, that you will reach out to him.”

Riku stared at his father. “Sure, Dad,” he said. “I’ll try. But R hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t, and if he does, it doesn’t matter,” Dad snapped. The vitriol made him start coughing again. He didn’t bother to cover his mouth, either. “Just - try, Riku, okay?”

“I promise to try.” Riku reached out to adjust his father’s blankets.

His father caught his hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “And you’re happy?” 

The _what do you care_ was right on the tip of Riku’s tongue, but he was supposed to be done being cruel. He thought of Naminé’s smile and Xion laughing at him, and the way Kairi had taught him how to do a cartwheel recently. And he thought of Sora and the way Sora fit perfectly into his arms and the way Sora would give him this exasperated look sometimes when Riku was being silly but be unable to stop looking fond. It wasn’t all perfect, but he didn’t think it’d be a stretch to call it close. “Yeah, Dad, I’m really happy.”

His father snorted. “Well, that’s something.” Riku smiled. His father might not approve of his life, but Riku didn’t care. He hadn’t even seen the man in years and sitting here next to him, he realized that he’d barely even thought about the man in years either. It hardly kept him up at night and it hadn’t for years. “It’s time for my medication. Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

“I - yeah, but I’m not coming back after this.”

“That’s fine, I’m supposed to dead within the week. We’ll just consider this our good-bye.” He made himself comfortable, still holding Riku’s hand. A pale green liquid made its way through the IV line. “Talk to me.”

When Riku was a kid, he’d said that all the time. _Talk to me_. Pay attention to me, tell me a story. It almost made laugh to hear it now, so he talked about whatever he wanted until his father’s eyes fluttered closed. “Be good, son.”

\-----

Eventually he untangled his father’s fingers and his own and stepped outside. For a second, he thought Sora had left him because the hallway was empty, but then Sora’s voice said, “Hey,” and Riku looked down to see Sora and his brother sitting against the wall.

“Uh, hi,” Riku said cautiously. Sora grinned at him. He and R were a study in contrasts; Sora’s legs were stretched out across the hallway and R was hunched over with his legs pulled against his chest. Riku couldn’t fathom why they were sitting together.

R was seventeen now, Riku was pretty sure. The fact that he didn’t know was painful, but he couldn’t remember the kid’s birthday. His hair was long, like Riku’s used to be. It was like looking in a mirror, right down to the ripped jeans Riku had worn to look cool in high school.

His brother glared at him half-heartedly. “Hi.”

Sora reached up and took Riku’s hands, warming up his cold fingers. “How you doing?”

“I don’t know.”

R snorted, picking at the hole in his jeans. “It’s not like you’re sad he’s gonna die.” Sora stilled beside him, but Riku couldn’t say anything to that. He wasn’t sad, exactly. He just felt a little bitter and semi-unresolved, which was worse. 

“Yeah, not really,” Riku said, using Sora’s hand to haul him up.

Sora was light and went up easily. “Wow, Riku, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to say that. It’s uncouth or something.”

“What do you know about couth,” Riku retorted, bumping Sora’s hip. “You ready to go?”

Sora nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.” To R, he added, “Really nice to meet you, R, I definitely mean it when I say you should come see Radiant Garden University, okay?”

“Maybe.”

“Great!” Sora clapped his hands twice, like it was all settled. “Whenever, okay? Okay, bye!”

He looked up at Riku, but Riku hesitated. “R - I -” He bit his lip. “Take care, okay? Dad said - well, honestly, I don’t care what he said, but I’m sorry we aren’t closer. I’d - I’d like to be, if that’s okay with you.”

R lifted a shoulder. “Whatever.” He didn’t sound that distressed by it either way, which meant it was probably fine. 

Without even thinking about it, Riku slid one of the big silver rings off his finger. Aqua had made two of them for him a few months ago. They were heavy and silver, and he liked to spin the one on his left hand when he was nervous. “Here. I want you to have this, okay? I - I want to be better.”

R slid the ring onto his middle finger. It was a little loose, but Riku was pretty sure it would fit in a few years. After all, R looked just like him. “Sure, Riku.”

Riku was struck by the realization of how little his brother actually said his name. “Okay. I’ll call you next week.” R nodded, and then Riku and Sora were off, striding in tandem down the hallway. His arm was around Sora’s shoulder and his right hand felt strangely light without the ring. He also felt a little light, just in general.

Sora reached up and laced his fingers with Riku’s now ringless ones. “So how are you_ really_.”

“I’m fine, I think.” He was mildly surprised to find it true. “More surprised by you making friends with my _brother_ than anyone else. I don’t know how you can make friends with literally _anyone_.”

“I _keep _telling you I’m very talented and you _never_ believe me, what does this say about our relationship,” Sora said, mock-serious. Riku appreciated that he was keeping the mood light, because he didn’t really - he didn’t want to dwell on the dark room and his father dying. “He just wanted someone to talk to, that’s all. That’s all people ever want.”

“But he could see you.”

“Must be the silver hair,” Sora told him. Riku snorted and Sora laughed. “I mean, your dad - well, sometimes people really close to death can see spirits, so I guess it makes sense that he could see me, but honestly I don’t know _what’s _up with your brother, he didn’t look like he had any magic on him at _all_.” Sora wrinkled his nose. “I _hate _not knowing things!”

Riku let them out the front door and ushered Sora into the front seat. Sora was still thinking about it, clearly. He was a bit of a magic nerd, when it came to that stuff. Riku started the engine. “Maybe it’s genetic?”

“I mean, it can be, but if you have any, it’s from your mom, _not_ your dad.” He hummed. “I wonder if maybe your stepmother has any? Because your dad doesn’t have a single ounce of magic in him. Not even a lucky charm on his cheek.”

Riku pulled the car away from the curb as Sora settled in and got comfortable. “It’s because everyone also probably hates him.”

Sora snorted, leaning back. He was clearly still thinking about the whole magical thing, because he was quiet. But Riku was feeling a bit better, which was kind of annoying, honestly, and he noticed pretty quickly that Sora was being unnaturally quiet, not just thoughtful. It still took him longer to notice than it should have, but he was content to blame that on thoughts of his father and the right way out of town.

But he didn’t like when Sora was quiet. He looked fine, just - just quiet. “What are you thinking?”

Sora startled like he hadn’t expected the question, his wrist banging against the center console. “Nothing! I’m not thinking anything!”

“Par for the course, then,” Riku replied, and wasn’t surprised when Sora’s hand reached over and whack him. “Come on.”

Sora let out a huff of air. “It’s not important.”

“Tell me anyways,” Riku suggested, because it was probably important and because he wasn’t used to Sora acting with such restraint and he kind of hated it. 

Sora messed with the buttons on the radio to avoid looking at Riku. “I just missed seeing you with long hair.” He was saying something but still avoiding saying what he was thinking, and Riku squinted at the road ahead of them - another hour until they were home - trying to figure out what Sora really meant.

He hadn’t realized, but R was seventeen, maybe eighteen. Getting ready to go college. R was probably the spitting image of the boy Sora had loved and remembered, the one who had left. “I could grow my hair out again.”

Unexpectedly, Sora snorted. “I like it like this too,” he reassured Riku. “It mostly just reminded me of how long we had to spend apart. I don’t know. Seeing your little brother was just - I didn’t expect him to look so much like you, after all.”

“Yeah, Dad was always saying he was like my clone.” Neither Riku or R had appreciated that very much.

“You were less edgy when you were eighteen.”

Now it was Riku’s turn to laugh. “I don’t think I was.”

“You probably wore more eyeliner,” Sora conceded, and now it was Riku’s turn to lean over and whack him.

“I did _not_!” He definitely had. “Stop laughing at me!”

“You look _so _offended by your childhood choices,” Sora told him, giggling. “Like how dare you look anything less than a perfect god.”

Riku snorted, trying not to laugh so much he couldn’t drive. Sora had no such qualms and continued to laugh and tease.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Riku said abruptly, unable to hold it in any longer. Sora’s laughter trailed off abruptly, the mood in the car ruined. “I know - I don’t ask for things and everyone always says I’m cold and closed off and-”

“Riku, Riku, stop!” Sora cut him off before he could work himself into a panic. Across the highway, the sun was getting low in the sky. In another hour, they’d be home, in time for dinner, and Riku focused on that. “You gotta know I don’t think of you that way at all, Riku.”

Riku gulped and chanced a glance over at Sora, who was looking at him completely in earnest, because Sora didn’t know any other way to be. He wasn’t like Riku, who had trouble asking for anything and who never said what was on his mind. People for _years _had told him he was a hard guy to get to know, a little icy, and Riku knew it was true.

And here Sora was, with complete faith, saying he knew that was wrong, he didn’t believe it at all. 

Riku swerved over to the side of the road. 

Sora startled. “Hey-”

Riku put the car into park and started to cry. 

Sora reached over to turn the hazards on and then carefully lifted Riku’s face up. “Oh, Riku,” he said, his thumb smoothing away tears. “You’re always so hard on yourself.”

Riku’s only response was gasping sobs as he curled his fists in Sora’s shirt. He braced his head against Sora’s shoulder and just sobbed, in a way that he hadn’t let himself in years. He felt almost silly, because he wasn’t a child who needed to be sobbing like this, but Sora was someone who cried often and easily. He’d never judge Riku for this.

He felt Sora’s hands smoothing against his back as his sobs subsided. He pressed his forehead against Sora’s shoulder, reluctant to peel himself away. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d cried. This must have been everything bottled up for years, pressurized and just waiting for someone to say that he wasn’t a bad person.

He rubbed his nose on the edge of his sleeve, his fingers aching from being clenched so tight. Sora’s nice button down was now wrinkled and covered in snot, too, but Riku couldn’t feel embarrassed about that. The more embarrassing thing was how much he’d cried and with Sora that was barely embarrassing at all. In fact, he felt much, much better, if much more tired. “I think I want to quit school.”

He’d said it to his father. Dad had tried not to look scandalized, as some sort of parting gift probably, but Riku had continued on. “I just hate it, Dad.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I want - well. Remember how you taught me to whittle? I’ve been doing woodworking and - I want to do that.” His father hadn’t said anything. He’d looked almost a little proud, but that could have been a trick of the light. He’d just let Riku continue on, but it was the first time Riku had admitted it, out loud, to anyone, including himself.

And now Sora. Twice in under a few hours. He really was in for an emotional beating today. 

“Okay.” Riku couldn’t see Sora’s face but he imagined that Sora didn’t really looked that surprised. He didn’t _sound_ surprised.

“I figure you already knew but I wanted to tell you.”

Sora let out a tiny laugh. “I had an inkling.”

“Sometimes I don’t tell you things because I think you’ll already know and not care.” The words were out before he could think about them, and this time he did lift his head to see Sora’s face. For once, Sora looked completely startled, as if Riku had done something as completely wild as punching him in the gut. Riku had grown too used to him just always knowing what Riku was thinking. “But. I hate that feeling. I don’t want that to stop me from telling you things. But I’m letting it stop me. And - and you know me too well.”

It was probably a crutch he was using to keep himself from having to share. Sora was so good at reading him, even when Riku was locking up his feelings on auto-pilot. Sora often figured out what Riku was dealing with and what the problem was before Riku consciously realized he’d even had a problem. Riku liked the feeling, but sometimes, it did come to this, where he’d consciously hold off on saying something he wanted to share because surely Sora already knew. Like his dad leaving or how he’d broken his arm when he was ten. 

“I want you to tell me,” Sora said, pushing Riku’s hair behind his ears. “I mean, we did spend lots of years apart! You have a different perspective now! And you didn’t talk about your feelings in high school much - not because you are an emotionally cold person, but because you were really scared, Riku, okay?” He pressed a kiss to Riku’s cheek and Riku closed his eyes, leaning in. “We grew, we changed, that’s life! I want you to be able to tell me these things too, even if you think I already know them, okay? It’s different hearing it coming from you because it’s you, okay? Not my memory, just _you_.”

Riku had known that. But he’d needed to hear it. “Thank you.”

“It’s an easy promise to make.” Sora reached over to the glove compartment and pulled out napkins, wetting them with a water bottle to start cleaning at Riku’s face. This too should have made Riku embarrassed, being taken care of like he was a child, but - he was tired. It felt nice, to be taken care of. “You know how shit my memory is, chances are I’ve already forgotten.”

Riku didn’t believe for a second that Sora had forgotten a single thing about him, but it was nice of him to say. “Do you think Terra would take me on as an apprentice?”

Sora grinned. “I bet he’d be delighted.” He sat back, satisfied with how clean Riku’s face was. He stuffed the damp napkin into his front pocket, like a ridiculous pocket square. “Aqua’s always telling me how proud he is of your progress.”

Riku hiccupped. “That’s really embarrassing and not at all reassuring.”

“He’s like a proud dad.”

Riku could imagine it. Terra already acted like that around one of his friends, Ven, who came by all the time. Riku groaned. “Let’s not go back home, let’s just - do you think Maine is nice this time of year?”

“Has really horrible winters, I’ve heard. No surfing at all.”

“I guess we’ll stay,” Riku decided. Reluctantly, he pulled his hands from Sora’s, knowing that if they didn’t get a move on, he’d sit here for hours, just soaking up Sora’s warmth. “Thanks.”

Sora smiled at him. “Anytime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully it wont be like a month before i update again sorry yall . i WILL get this fic out by the end of the year i swear it


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short one today yall sorry!! we only hvave like 2 more chapters to go after this

Riku didn’t _one hundred percent _drop out of school. He told them he was taking a leave of absence for a semester, and they said “That’s fine Riku, here is your money.” (They actually made him spend hours on the phone with the bursar trying to get a refund for his three classes).

_Terra _did say, “I’d love to have you come on as an apprentice, Riku,” which meant Riku spent most of his days now in the studio that Terra rented, crouched down and sanding a table or a chair or _whatever_. It was hot no matter the weather outside and Riku was always sweating, but Terra didn’t have any other apprentices, as far as Riku could tell. Riku didn’t say anything about it but that thrilled him more than he could really express.

It left him a lot of time to do other things, and hang out with Sora, which Riku _did _like. Naminé and Xion even made them go on double dates, which Riku found mildly hilarious. To other people it must have just looked like he was third-wheeling them. But they didn’t care and he didn’t care and Sora _loved_ for them all to hang out. Sometimes they invited Kairi, too, making them four wheels. Sometimes Riku was the fifth wheel, when Kairi brought along her girlfriend, a girl named Olette who went to the university in Twilight Town. Apparently, she didn’t have a lick of magic in her and had never been able to see Sora, no matter how much Kairi had wished it. Sora seemed to like _her_, as a person, but hating hanging out with her, which was only fair. Conversations around her got… odd. Riku didn’t know what she was hearing, if she was hearing anything from Sora at all.

Kairi didn’t know what to do about it, apparently. One of those late summer thunderstorms had sprung up, humid and energy crackling in a way that only reminded Riku of Sora as he hurried home from his woodworking class, and when he opened the door, Kairi was on the couch.

She lifted a hand when Riku stepped through the door, kicking off his wet shoes and coat. Even his hoodie underneath was kind of damp. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Riku said, pleasantly surprised to see her. She’d gotten a job at a marine wildlife research center after graduation and the past few months had been shuttling back and forth between Radiant Gardens and the beach a good thirty minutes away. Riku hadn’t seen her in a while, actually, she’d been so busy trying to figure everything out.

He dropped his backpack on the dining room table and collapsed into the armchair next to her, pulling off his damp hoodie. From this angle, he could see Sora asleep with his head in her lap, his legs curled up against his chest. The light kept flickering, too, but sometimes before they’d sat down, they must have lit some of those lavender candles Naminé liked so much. It was nice and cozy inside, and _warm_.

Sora looked peaceful, which was good. Riku couldn’t _confirm _it, but he thought Sora hadn’t been sleeping well lately. Any attempts to ask had been easily tossed off by Sora with a glib smile. He was good at that. “What’s up?”

“Oh, well, my dating life was in shambles and I wanted to talk to Sora about it, but he’s asleep.”

“You could wake him up.”

Kairi shook her head. “I think his last exorcism really took it out of him,” she said, which, yeah, Riku could confirm. Of course Kairi would know that too; she and Sora talked on the phone nearly every day. “My crisis can wait.”

“You can tell me,” Riku suggested. “Not that I know anything about dating. Sora’s the only person I’ve ever dated. Except for one guy in college who vaped in front of me while we were waiting for the bus, but that didn’t even last the bus ride, so I don’t know if it counts.”

It was kind of a sad saga, actually, never dating. All through college, Riku had been a loner. Before a few months ago, he’d probably had said he’d been a loner his whole life, even though he knew that wasn’t true now. Maybe he’d always had trouble connecting, even when he’d had Sora and Kairi. For a second, he ached for the Riku that had been able to keep them both.

“Well, you’ve dated Sora twice, that has to count for something,” Kairi pointed out. “It’s almost weird.”

Riku’s voice squeaked embarrassingly when he asked “It’s _weird_?”

Kairi laughed at him. “I guess not _weird_,” she protested, flapping her hand around as if to dispel the notion. “Just – uh, well, weird.”

Riku slouched down in his seat, pulling his legs up to his chest. “Really not comforting, Kai,” he mumbled to his knees.

She groaned. “Okay, well, _you _try having an invisible best friend and another best friend who forgot he exists and then three years later, they’re dating.” She paused, probably for dramatic effect. “Again.”

Riku pushed his bangs out of his face. “Is it really – weird?”

Kairi shrugged one shoulder, trying to keep Sora comfortable. “It’s weird to see.” She bit her lip, considering her words. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I figured you were kind of gone from our life forever, you know?”

Heat crawled up the back of Riku’s neck, coaxing him into anger. It was stupid, but the thing that set him off the most was Kairi saying _our life_, as in the one Riku was not supposed to be involved in. As if it was hers and Sora’s, the singular life. “How could I _not _take that the wrong way?”

“You didn’t know he existed!” Kairi argued back. In her life, Sora let out a little mumbling and kicked a foot up, knocking a pillow onto the ground. Kairi and Riku both quieted, holding their breath to see if he’d wake up. He didn’t, of course. He could sleep through a freight train even if it barreled through their bedroom. “Sorry.”

Riku dropped his forehead back onto his knees. “It’s okay.” He was pretty sure it was okay, at least. “I just wish I’d been there.”

“Well, I wish you’d been there too,” Kairi said, leaning her head against the back of the couch. “I shouldn’t have said it was weird. I just meant – it’s almost funny, you know? It’s been so many years and it’s almost like we never lost anything, I guess? I really used to think you guys would be together forever and – you literally managed to overcome a curse.”

“Not totally.”

“But enough to make you both happy!” Kairi wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know how you _did_ it, Riku, you could never see anything before, you just – you just can now.”

“I don’t know how I did it either,” Riku said. “So I can’t help you Olette.”

Kairi bit down her lip. “Yeah.” She was silent for a long moment, staring at one of the flickering candles on the coffee table while Riku watched her. “She asked me to move in with her.”

Riku blinked. “Isn’t that really good?” They’d been dating almost a year now; he was pretty sure. He’d stalked her Facebook for a long time after the first time seeing her, and there were dozens of pictures of her and Olette on cute dates. He’d been on dates with them, even, so he _knew_ how much Kairi liked them.

“She thinks we should get a place between Twilight Town and Radiant Garden, and it would be closer to work for me...” Kairi trailed off, his nose scrunching up as she thought about it.

Riku squinted at her. “What’s the problem?”

“Well, I have my whole other life! With Sora and my magic-” she waved her hand around, agitated. With a huge thunderclap, all the lights went out. The candles too, sending up smoke as the wind wailed and rattled the windows. “I didn’t do that.” From the ocean salt coating his tongue, though, and the ghost sensations of waves crashing against his skin, Riku knew the candles going out _were_ her fault.

Sora’s voice, startlingly clear for someone who’d just woken up, came from the darkness. “It’s not really another life, Kairi, it’s just more of the one you already have.”

They were all silent for a minute. “I just don’t want to have more of a life that I can’t share with her,” Kairi said eventually. “I can’t build a relationship on that. I mean, I want to spend the rest of my life with this girl, but I _can’t_ build a life with her if I’m hiding a secret like this! Not just magic, but _you_, Sora? I don’t think I could - I mean - it’s such a big part of my life. It’d be like hiding my last name!”

Riku guessed he understood that. It wasn’t the same for him, not really, even though he and Sora had only been together for five or six months. But most of Riku’s world was Sora and the people who could see Sora. He didn’t have much family, and he and his mother barely talked anyway. Riku could count on one hand the amount of people he talked to regularly, and one of them was the barista who worked the shift at the Coffee Hut before Riku’s morning shift at the library.

Kairi wasn’t like that. Riku only knew some of the story, but she wasn't a loner like he was. Sora might still be her best friend, but she’d gone to college and made more friends and had a life, with and without Sora. Possibly she wanted to live every bit of it, to make up for the fact that Sora couldn’t, and Sora had probably encouraged her at every step. There was no way he wouldn’t have.

But - yes, Riku could see how Sora would throw a wrench in the plans. What he and Kairi had done, in high school, had altered the three of them so fundamentally that Riku could never think of himself as the same, and he didn’t even remember it. The unknown ripples had spread for _years_ in ways he’d never understand and couldn’t untangle himself from. Something like that would be impossible to keep hidden from the people most important to you, and the guilt that Kairi must carry around, even if Sora never blamed her… The thought had probably never crossed his mind, but Riku was sure Kairi thought about it often. How her life and Sora’s intertwined. She must think of it every day.

There was another thunderclap, rattling the house. 

“Why can’t you tell her?” It was totally dark in the house, but Riku could just _sense _Kairi and Sora turn to look at him. He wondered if they had some sort of witch-sight, if they could see the way he was blinking.

“Yeah,” Sora said, sounding confused. Riku jumped when he felt Sora’s hand on his knee. “Why _can’t_ you just tell her?”

“Uh, she’ll think I’ve lost my fucking marbles?” Kairi’s tone of voice indicated that she thought Riku and Sora had also lost their marbles at the moment.

Sora snorted. The sky lit up with lightning and Riku could see the outline of his delicate face. “Well, I think it’s your only option, Kairi. Either you tell her or you don’t, but only the second one guarantees you’re going to lose her, right?”

Kairi groaned. “There’s no way this is going to end well.”

“Olette loves you,” Sora said honestly. He sounded so truthful and certain, his voice ringing out in the dark. There seemed no room for argument, not when Sora had that much faith. “It’ll go fine.”

Riku privately didn’t think so, but he didn’t bring that up until later, when he was pulling his shirt off to get ready for bed. “Do you think it’ll really go fine?” Kairi was asleep in his room and he was in Sora’s, which was rapidly become more familiar than his. It was late, far too late, but Riku no longer had classes to go to, so it didn’t matter that they’d stayed up and drank shitty cider and Riku joked about pulling out a Ouija board and then laughed himself silly at the affronted looks on Kairi and Sora’s faces. The storm was moving out and the thunder had stopped. They could just hear the light pattering of rain now.

Sora looked up from the candle he was lighting. “Huh? Oh! Yeah, I think so. I’ve never like, _really_ talked to Olette, but I’ve met her and I think she really loves Kairi.” He smiled at the candle fondly, the glow creating soft shadows on his face. “She’s really nice.”

“But not a magical bone in her body.”

“Literally none. I mean, I could _maybe_ do some magic and make her see me-” Sora grinned at his own pun as he put the candle down “-but only for a minute, if that. And I don’t think anyone’s really… done that before so I don’t think it would be easy, I’d probably have to create a new spell-” he cut himself off before he started rambling. “It’s not a solution. It’s just like a _ah ha! I’m here now!_ solution.”

What a Sora-esque solution. Riku reached out and caught Sora’s wrist, reeling him in until Sora fell onto the bed beside him. “So it’ll be okay?”

“Have a little faith, Riku,” Sora scolded him, folding himself into Riku’s arms. “It’s Kairi we’re talking about. She’ll make it happen.”

Riku wished he could have that faith. Sora probably had enough for the both of them.

\-----

“You smell like wood,” Sora told him, picking him up from the studio for his lunch break. He was practically glowing in the sun, leaning against the warm brick. It might have been truly fall, Riku donning his favorite coat, but Sora would remain summer warmth forever. His warm hands burned so hot they were like ice against Riku’s.

“And sweat,” Riku grumbled. His hands _did _permanently smell of burnt wood now but he knew Sora kind of liked it anyways.

“Nami said she’ll meet us on the quad.”

“It’s _cold out_,” Riku protested, hunching his shoulders up in his jacket. In the sun it was lovely but the wind just had a tiny bit of chill, just enough to make Riku think of fall and winter and that he should have worn a scarf.

Sora threw his arms around Riku, hanging on him and forcing Riku to wrap an around his waist to haul him up. “I’ll keep you warm.”

Riku couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “That was the _worst_ innuendo.” 

“Uh-huh, you look very dissatisfied.” Sora wrapped his hands around Riku’s waist, tucking his hands into his pockets so that they were forced to do this ridiculous waddle, like weird little penguins. They did it all the way to campus, where they saw Naminé sitting on a blanket in the quad. “There’s Nami!”

She was laughing at them, doing their weird waddle. Students were grumbling at them and dodging and for once Riku didn’t care. “Hi Nami.” He was breathless from laughing so much.

“Hi!” Naminé gestured them onto the blanket. Once Riku sat, it was like he’d entered a little bubble of warmth. Naminé winked at him, running a finger over one of the pink curlicues on the edge. “Little temperature charm woven into the pattern.”

Riku stretched out his legs, reveling in the warmth. “It’s great.” He shed his coat happily. He missed summer.

“I was supposed to keep Riku warm,” Sora pouted, leaning against Riku so that they were pressed together from shoulder to hip, his leg thrown over Riku’s shin.

“Gross,” Naminé told him without ire, as if she and Xion had never been just as disgustingly attached to each other. “You can’t, because I invited someone to eat with us.”

Sora scrunched up his nose. “Okay, but I didn’t bring lunch for them.”

Riku knew that was as close to Sora would get to voicing his displeasure. Conversations with people who couldn’t see him were weird and stilted. Going out to eat or ordering take-out was fine, because people could just order _for _Sora but engaging in a whole conversation… it made Riku’s skin scrawl. People always seemed to be missing what was said in a way that was a little frightening. Like they weren’t all there, even if the one who wasn’t all there was _Sora_. Sora would never say it, but he clearly didn’t like it either. Riku couldn’t even imagine living through a veil like that, every moment of the day; he could barely handle being around it for an hour.

Naminé put her hand on Sora’s knee, exposed through the rip in his jeans. “I think he should be able to see you, though! He’s one of Xion’s friends!” She gave him a tentative smile. “It should be okay, right?”

Sora’s voice sounded slightly strangled as opposed to thrilled with this development. Usually he’d be delighted to find someone new who could see him. “Right.” His hand in Riku’s hand gone limp. “And who is-”

“There he is,” Naminé said, removing her hand from Sora’s knee and waving. “Roxas, over here!”

Sora’s leg against Riku’s started jittering. Riku looked up to find a blond boy in a heavy coat heading in their direction. He squinted. He recognized that boy, from Destiny Islands. Roxas had been a couple of years younger than him, so they hadn’t really interacted much, but Riku had always gotten the intense feeling that Roxas didn’t like him much.

From the scowl on his face, that hadn’t changed.

Naminé didn’t notice - maybe Roxas always looked that way - because she smiled up at him anyways. “Roxas! Come join us!”

Roxas dropped gracelessly onto the blanket, his fist clenching around the strap of his backpack. He didn’t seem alarmed by the temperature change, but then, Naminé had said he could see Sora fine, and he was friends with Roxas, so the magic thing must not have been a surprise to him at all. So many people from Destiny Islands had magic, Riku was starting to wonder if the damn islands themselves were magic.

“Roxas, this is Riku-”

“I know him,” Roxas said quickly. “Destiny Islands, right?”

Riku coughed. “Uh, yeah.” 

Naminé clapped in delight. “Oh, you know each other, that’s so wild!”

“I didn’t realize you were the same Riku Xion was talking about,” Roxas said. It was just the right side of polite, though not particularly friendly.

“Isn’t that weird?” Naminé said, grinning. “And, oh, this is Sora”.

Roxas’s face cleared up as he looked at Sora. “Oh, right,” he said, sounding _much_ nicer. Riku wished he knew what he’d done to wrong Roxas so much. “Xion talks about you all the time! Nice to meet you finally!”

“Uh, yeah, you too!” Sora relinquished Riku’s hand to shake Roxas’s outstretched one. “I thought you went to school in Twilight Town?”

Roxas nodded. Now that Sora had mentioned it, Riku could remember Xion and Kairi talking about a Roxas in Twilight Town. “I’m taking a history course here. Through the consortium thing.”

“Oh, cool,” Sora said. He did not sound at all like he thought it was cool. He sounded a little bit like he wanted to die. His shoulders were so tense that they were up by his ears.

Roxas didn’t notice, of course, and Naminé drew him into conversation about the class, sharing her lunchbox with him. Riku took the opportunity to lean over and put his lips close to Sora’s ear so that only he could hear. “What’s wrong?”

Sora jerked back. “I’m fine, Riku, don’t be silly!”

It was Riku’s turn to wrap his hand around Sora’s wrist, hopefully bringing him the same comfort Riku felt when Sora did the same to him. “Hey. Don’t try that on me, okay?”

Sora raised his chin, jaw clenched. “Then I don’t want to talk about it.”

Riku didn’t have an answer to that. He couldn’t make Sora talk, but Sora was always so open. The world felt off-kilter if he wasn’t willing to talk at all. Riku had never needed to handle this before. He didn’t know what to say. “Okay.”

Sora grimaced and offered him one of the carrots from his lunchbox. Riku took it for the peace offering it was and turned back to Roxas and Naminé.

“I’m actually a little behind on credits,” Roxas was admitting, freely dipping into Naminé’s bag of chips. He’d brought his own soda - Naminé would never drink Mountain Dew. “It took me ages to choose a major. Drove my brothers insane.”

“You have two, right?”

“Yeah, they’re twins.” Roxas took a long swig of the radioactive drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Kind of annoying about it, too.” The trace of a smile was on his face, though. “I don’t think they wanted me to go for a history major. I swear, sometimes it was easier before we were all close.”

Riku wasn’t _watching_ Sora but he felt him flinch, like he’d been struck. 

“You know what, I gotta go,” Sora announced suddenly, jumping to his feet. “I have to - I have a shift of work. At! At work! I have a shift at - yeah, I gotta go. Roxas, you can have my lunch, okay?”

“Oh, I have my own-” Roxas faltered as Sora practically shoved the lunchbox into his lap and _raced_ away. He wasn’t even trying to be smooth about it.

Naminé looked at Riku, her face blank. Damn, and Riku had been hoping she’d have the inside knowledge on whatever had just gone down. “What just happened?”

“Is he okay?” Roxas echoed.

Riku shook his head and started putting his lunch back into the lunchbox. He knew better than to try and chase Sora down; Sora was lighter on feet and had a lot more stamina, he’d make it wherever he was going long after Riku had to stop. Sora had even left his phone, which was covered in messages from Kairi. “I’ll go deal with him.” He dumped the phone into his pocket and stood up. Outside the bubble, the wind hit Riku’s face like a whip, making his eyes water. “Sorry, Roxas, next time, okay?”

Roxas sounded completely bewildered. “Uh, sure. Totally fine.”

Riku hoped it was.

\-----

Sora was definitely home because his shoes were thrown in the entryway, where he must have toed them off before running upstairs. Riku nudged them closer to the couch, so Naminé wouldn’t trip on them when she came in.

Sora’s door was closed. Riku _could_ open, but he could hear Sora inside, and it felt wrong to, even if this room was more theirs than just his anymore. Riku pressed his hand to the door instead, like that would enable him to feel Sora. “Sora?”

“Go away.”

“Can I come in?

“Not yet.”

Riku sighed. “I brought you some tea and a fruit tart from the Bistro.”

The door cracked open. “This is bribery,” Sora said flatly from where he was lying on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, hands folded behind his head. He must have opened the door with a little magic.

“Yeah, that was the point.” Riku sat down beside Sora, putting the tea on the bedside table. He slowly raised a hand to Sora’s head and Sora leaned into his touch. He would have understood if Sora hadn’t, but Riku also probably wouldn’t have known what to do, it would have been like dealing with an unknowable alien instead of his boyfriend. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Sora rolled over so that his face was hidden along Riku’s leg. “No.”

“Okay,” Riku said, feeling rather spectacularly helpless. Sora’s eyes had been red when he rolled over; he’d been crying. “Do you, uh, want me to just sit here then?”

Sora exhaled. “Yeah.”

That Riku could do. He ran his fingers through Sora’s hair, providing what comfort he could.

He wasn’t actually sure if Sora would ever break. By nature, Sora wasn’t a particularly closed off person, but then, he was very good at pasting a smile on his face when he thought his hurt wasn’t enough. This was the first time Sora had ever shut him out like that, and it seemed to surprise Sora as much as it had Riku. So really, Riku had absolutely no precedent for this. It could go either way. So Riku did the best he could, and stayed there at Sora’s side.

Eventually, though, Sora did say something, turning his face just a little bit. “Ithsgmbroger.”

“It’s what?”

Sora lifted his head. “Roxas is my brother.”

Riku’s jaw dropped; the tart slipped off its plate and nearly hit the ground, except he managed to catch it clumsily, sending crumbs everywhere. “What?” He was glad he wasn’t still holding the tea, that would have been a _huge_ mess.

“He’s my little brother,” Sora repeated. Now that he’d said that, they did look very similar. Same bright blue eyes, so blue and pure that they’d have been startling if they weren’t so friendly. Same height, the same slight build. “Always has been.”

“But - I - he said -” Riku’s shaking hands put the plate on the table too. “I - really?”

“I wouldn’t _lie_-”

“No, I know,” Riku reassured him. “I just -”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Sora said miserably. He looked more upset, more broken than Riku had ever seen him. Everything else, he handled with grace, but his eyes were red and his face tear-tracked and he looked so small, impossibly small when Riku _knew _he was bigger than life. Family had a way of getting under your skin like nothing else.

“Okay,” Riku said. “Can I lie down?”

The shining grateful look in Sora’s eye told him all he needed to know. The second his head hit the pillow Sora curled up against him, burying his face in Riku’s chest. He wasn’t crying now, even if he had been earlier. Maybe he’d shed all the tears he possibly could over it.

Riku had never thought about - about Sora’s family. Naively, he had just been content to assume Sora sprung into being, fully formed, with no parents or siblings to think of. But Sora had a family. Brothers. Three of them, apparently, three of them who were all close. They were all close _without _Sora.

No wonder he never went back to Destiny Islands. 

Riku threw his arm over Sora’s shaking shoulders. Sora didn’t want him to say _sorry_ so Riku did the best he could, and pressed a kiss to Sora’s forehead.

\-----

Sora didn’t explain to Naminé anything, although she’d come home and asked. Riku had awkwardly said something like _he just was thinking about Destiny Islands, you know, home… _and Naminé had - well, she hadn’t accepted it, but she’d accepted that she wasn’t going to get anything more. By the next morning, Sora was back to his usual self but Riku couldn’t stop looking at him and seeing yesterday: the exhaustion in his shoulders, the subtle way he’d clenched his jaw, the absolutely broken-hearted look on his face. For a while, Riku touched him like he was made of glass and Sora allowed it, giving Riku a soft fragile smile when he noticed.

Sora _was _made of glass, through and through, and Riku handled him with delicate hands. He needed it this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to roxas for hating riku for dating his beloved older brother even tho roxas doesn't even remember said older brother he DOES remember the grudge . roxas i lov u


	7. Chapter 7

Naminé had texted Riku several times but he ignored all of them in favor of just sprawling out on the lonely bed that was covered in tissues. But Saturday morning brunch was a standard, even if Sora wasn’t here to make heart shaped waffles with jam, so Riku was surprised when he heard Xion’s voice at the door.

She knocked twice, two short raps. It felt a little good, actually, that she’d knocked on the door to what was technically Sora’s room. Riku wasn’t sure the last time he’d slept in his own bed. When Sora left a few mornings ago, he’d crawled out of _this _bed, leaving Riku behind, pressed a kiss to Riku’s forehead in his wake. 

“Riku? It’s brunch time.”

Riku groaned, trying to sound as miserable as possible. It was pretty easy, actually, his head was pounding. It felt like there was a tiny drummer slamming a sick – _haha_ – beat against the inside of his skull. “I’m sick.”

“Oh no,” Xion said. “Can I come in?”

“At your own risk.”

She popped the door open and stuck her head in, eyes widening at the state of Riku and the messy bed and the tissues that covered the floor. Riku couldn’t even bring himself to be embarrassed about it. “Oh, you’re really sick.” She reached down and put the back of her hand against Riku’s forehead, her eyes soft and sympathetic. “A little hot. I thought maybe you meant you were sick like _I just miss Sora too much to go on_ sick.”

“Hey!” It was a good thing Riku’s face was already red from the slight fever or he’d have flushed. “I’m not _that_ weak,” he protested, tossing a balled-up tissue at her.

The tissue barely made it over the side of the bed, let alone anywhere close to Xion and she grinned at him. “I know,” she said gently. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared out the door but she left it open for Chirithy, who jumped up on the bed gracefully, flicking his ears. He had spent the past few days unsettled by Sora’s disappearance, pacing around the hallway and the kitchen where Sora would feed him little bits of food. Usually he yowled at Riku a little bit when it was just Riku in the bed, but today he settled into the space between Riku’s legs happily enough.

Xion reappeared with one of those actual wooden trays meant for beds. She propped it up over Riku’s knees and helped him sit up. “Heart-shaped waffles and everything!” She settled into the armchair next to the side of the bed. Riku often wondered why it was there, and only now he was wondering if it was for people to watch over Sora when he went a little too far. “Drink the water.”

Riku looked down at the little waffles. “Thanks.” He’d deny that he was tearing up, but if he was, it was because he was snotty and ill and everything made him want to cry, not because he was weak and no one had ever done this for him before. He picked up the fork.

“That’s my homemade jam,” Xion noted as Riku stuffed a bunch of waffles in his mouth.

“It’s good,” Riku mumbled, then swallowed. “You don’t have to stay, you know. But, uh, thank you.”

Xion smirked at him. “I’m staying because you’re bedridden and pathetic and probably don’t want to be alone,” she said. “Or are you just wearing Sora’s t-shirt because it fits really well?”

Riku crossed his arms over the T-shirt, which had a little blue crown on the front and was definitely one of Sora’s. Sora wore it to sleep it, and it was big on him, but on Riku it _was_ a tiny bit tight. “It’s fine.”

“It’s cute,” Xion reassured him, which wasn’t actually reassuring at all. “We all miss him, you know?”

At this point, Sora had been gone for almost two weeks. He’d told Riku that it would probably takes this long, but Riku still didn’t like it. Sora had known that but… “Someone called in a favor, Riku, I can’t just ignore it! I’ll only be a couple of weeks.”

“Where are you _going_,” Riku had asked, watching Sora gather things on their bed. Some candles, some thistle, several various stones. A couple of wooden rings carved from a willow tree, the metal runes that burned Sora’s hands if he held them too long but gave the most accurate readings. Sora had little pockmarks all along his left palms from them.

Sora had tilted his head up, fastening in a new set of earrings that seemed to glow in the evening light. Riku thought they might have been moonstone, but he didn’t know what that meant. He had bracelets sliding down his tan wrists and rings on each finger too. “The spirit world. Just to take care of some stuff.”

Riku squinted suspiciously. “What stuff.”

Sora laughed at him, looping his arms around Riku’s waist. He slid his warm hands under Riku’s shirt and up his back, the cold rings and bracelets making Riku shiver. “Relax,” he teased. “The turtle-spirits in the garden want me to look into their river drying up. They think it might be a water demon, but something small, because it’s a small river. It’ll just take a while to get there.”

He sent messages, of course, from the spirit world. Little flowers appeared on their bedside table or smoke from Riku’s wood burner would twirl itself into a heart shape before disappearing again. He could feel Sora’s presence, taste paopu on his tongue, every time he did it.

Everyone _else_ reminded him of Sora too. Partially it was because neither Naminé of Riku could cook, so he was always on their mind, but even Aqua wanted to know. Whenever Naminé asked Riku to pick something up from Aqua’s little magic store, she asked how he was doing.

“Is he okay?”

“I think so.” Riku accepted the box she gave him. It was kind of heavy, but he wasn’t a snoop, so he didn’t open the top and peek despite how much he wanted to. “He sent a message yesterday.” It had been a swirly little heart in the foam of Riku’s coffee as he sat on the couch watching the weather channel.

“That’s good,” Aqua said, grinning. She worried about him. “And are you taking care of him? He’s happy?” 

The tone of her voice was clear, and Riku flushed. “Uh, I hope so,” he mumbled, juggling the box. He hoped the witch behind him in the row with all the candles couldn’t hear anything. Aqua had no sense of propriety sometimes, much like Sora did.

“That’s good.” Aqua rang up the old-fashioned cash register with a chime. Riku still wasn’t sure how the thing took credit card, but he never had cash to give and Aqua never said it was a problem. “I mean - I’m sure we both know Sora’s a very happy boy, but he carries around so much sadness… I think you’re good for him, Riku.”

Riku had been red the whole way home, where he’d found a white bloom on his nightstand. The day after that had been a bird tapping at his window, rustling its blue feathers. After that had been clouds, forming into a smiley face. But whatever message he’d gotten yesterday, Riku had missed it on account of being so sick he slept the entire day.

He hated being sick. He’d always hated it, even before it meant missing the equivalent of his boyfriend’s magic text messages.

Xion was looking at him sympathetically. “We all miss him,” Riku repeated to Xion dutifully.

Xion giggled, tucking her hair behind her ears. She looked very cozy in her brightly colored socks and sweater. Riku wasn’t going to ask but he wondered when Naminé was going to ask her to move in. Naminé hadn’t said anything about it either, but Riku wasn’t stupid and Xion spent half her time her anyways. “Sora was one of my first real friends,” she told him. “I was visiting Kairi and he told me my skirt was tucked into my tights. He was so _surprised _when I told him thank you, I think - he never said, but I think I was the first person to see him besides Kairi.”

Riku blinked. “It wasn’t Naminé?”

Xion shook her head. “Kairi and I introduced him to Naminé,” she said, fiddling with her finger sin her lap. “It - well, I met Kairi and Naminé here, in Radiant Garden. It was my birthday, actually. I just - felt like needed to drive up here, so I did. So did they.”

“Sounds spooky.”

Xion shrugged. “Some rituals are more innate than we think.” She sighed, getting comfortable. She reached over and stole a bite of Riku’s waffle, clearly unconcerned with catching his cold. Come to think of it, none of them hadn’t gotten sick in the entire time Riku had known them, over an entire year, and Riku had caught numerous colds and sniffles. “I grew up in a _really _small town, so at first, Sora was way too much for me to handle. I mean, Naminé-” she blushed, even though she and Naminé had been dating for years now. “Naminé is kind of quiet, and Kairi’s peppy but Sora is just like - ”

“A total goof,” Riku nodded.

Xion broke into a huge smile, one that would rival Sora’s. “Yeah, exactly. It’s nice! It was just a little scary, at first. My hometown is less than 200 people.”

Riku blinked. Destiny Islands was small, but it still easily had several thousand people, enough that Riku could walk into the grocery store and not see anyone he knew. “Less than _200_?”

Xion nodded, stretching out her legs to put on the bed. Chirithy attacked her foot immediately, pulling at her pink sock. “I had to take a bus to a surrounding school. There were _no_ kids my age. Most of the people around me were ranchers or farmers and my dad was too. We grew wheat.”

Everything in Riku’s brain surrounding Xion slotted into place. “_Oh_.” He’d known through Sora that she was from a small town, but that was it, but suddenly things made a bit more sense. “That’s why your magic tastes so earthy!”

Xion stared at him for a moment than burst out laughing. “I’ve never really thought about it like that,” she admitted, wiping at her eyes. Chirithy grumbled by the outburst, pawing at her, and she scooped him up and pressed a kiss to his head. “I guess so.”

“It tastes pretty good,” Riku admitted. “Like pumpkin pie. Is that weird to say?”

“A little bit, but that’s okay.” He eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’m sure Sora’s magic tastes much better.”

Riku burst into a coughing fit that was only half a diversionary tactic. His luck wasn’t good, though; Naminé’s voice floated in from the doorway where she was witnessing all this. “I bet it tastes like paopu fruit.”

“No,” Riku said weakly. “It’s, uh-”

She laughed at him like she’d just caught a cat doing something particularly silly. “I was just teasing, but it _does_, doesn’t it!” 

“You’re all the worst, I’m ill,” Riku moaned, covering his face with his hands.

Naminé was clearly trying really hard to stop laughing at him, but Xion wasn’t at all. Riku could hate them, except he liked them so much.

“Sorry, sorry, we know you’re sick and missing your boyfriend, you’re just so cute together, that’s all,” Naminé reassured him. She passed him a glass full of bright green … something. “Next time, _tell _me you aren’t feeling well, these are _way_ more effective if they’re in advance, okay?”

Riku sniffed at the green liquid. It smelled like mint and also a little grass and - alcohol, way underneath that all. He held his nose and swallowed it. It tasted awful, and he nearly gagged but it did clear up his sinuses nearly immediately. “Yes _Mom_.”

She reached out and flicked his ear, smiling fondly. “Jerk.” She settled into the big armchair, half beside Xion and half on top of her. “I _was_ wondering where you were yesterday, though.”

Riku threw back the second half of the drink and reached immediately for the water to wash it down. “That’s disgusting.”

“Sora’s supposed to be back in a few days, do you really want to be sick and not be able to kiss him when he’s back?”

“Sora never gets sick,” Riku mumbled. 

Naminé leaned over and put a cool washcloth on his forehead. It brought _instant_ relief. “My point still stands,” she said mock-sternly. “You should get some more sleep, okay? I’ll bring you some soup for dinner.”

“Thanks,” Riku said, catching her hand gently as she drew away. “I mean it, Nami.”

She gave him a soft smile. He’d never used the nickname before, but it felt coming out his mouth. “What are best friends for!” She pat at his shoulder. “Go to sleep, okay?”

Riku did, closing his eyes as Naminé ushered Xion out. He trusted Naminé would bring him soup for dinner.

\-----

Sora was, in fact, late returning. Riku was well over his cold and pretending not to worry at all about his tardiness, which just meant both he and Naminé were walking around the house pretending not to be worried for over a week. Xion kept coming over too, though she didn’t seem nearly as worried. Probably because she had gone to the spirit world before, or maybe because she was always the one at Sora’s side, but Riku couldn’t help but worry.

Riku had been spending a little bit too long at the workshop with Terra, theoretically getting in extra pay but definitely avoiding the house, but the feeling when he pushed open the door, exhausted from his shift, and saw Sora’s shoes in the hallway was like nothing Riku had ever felt. The pure euphoria, followed by a sudden drop as he recognized a slight scorch mark in the pattern of a magic circle on the wooden floor. “Sora?”

No answer. Riku dropped his backpack and pulled his shoes off immediately. The house was silent besides Riku’s pounding heart but - _there_. Sora was curled up on the couch, not moving.

“Sora!” Riku dropped to his knees besides the couch, putting his palm to Sora’s face, shaking his shoulder. Sora had a bruise under his left eye and he was kind of dusty, bits and pieces shedding onto the couch and turning it a pale gray. His shirt was torn at the collar. Riku felt like he couldn’t get enough air, there was buzzing in his brain, Sora wasn’t okay--

Sora’s eyes slid open, revealing that blue. “Hi.”

Riku pressed a desperate kiss to his mouth, cradling Sora’s head. Sora himself seemed sluggish, his head heavy against Riku’s hand, but he kissed back, his hand curling in Riku’s collars. He tasted like dust too but that didn’t stop a small giggle from escaping. “Guess you really missed me, huh.”

Riku sat back on his heels, adrenaline and fear giving way to relief. “You scared me, I thought you were dead!” The adrenaline and fear had nowhere to go but anger, it seemed.

Sora immediately looked contrite. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be late-”

“Not that, though I’m mad about that too, I thought you were dead on our couch!” His heart was going double time. It was one thing to _know_ Sora did dangerous things and another to see him laid out, completely quiet, so still that he didn’t even look like he was breathing,

“I’m fine,” Sora whispered. His voice was rough and hoarse, like he’d been sick too, like dust coated the inside of his throat. Riku resisted the urge to check as Sora pushed himself up clumsily, one arm buckling under his own weight. “I just used, um, way too much magic getting back, that’s all. Couldn’t get up the stairs.”

“I - okay,” Riku said, because Sora was always more important than Riku’s anger. They could talk later. Like maybe when Sora’s voice didn’t sound so painful. He leaned over and scooped Sora up. 

“My hero.”

Riku didn’t like to hear Sora sound so exhausted, unable to make even the easiest innuendo in the book flirtatious. He tried not think about the last time he’d carried Sora up these stairs, with a burnt shoulder and a stitched-up hand.

He settled Sora into the bed, carefully pulling off his dirty jeans and shirt. Sora had some bruising near his heart, like he’d been punched by something with a heavy swing, but he mostly looked okay. No scars, no hastily stitched up wounds. Just the bruising and the deep shadows under his eyes. And, upon closer look, bruising around his throat, like something had tried to crush it. No wonder he was having trouble speaking.

Sora seemed half-asleep again, but he noticed when Riku slid into the bed next to him, sliding his arms around him. “I missed you.”

“Go to sleep,” Riku mumbled, smoothing his hand down Sora’s back, caressing the knobs of his spine like a talisman. Was he skinnier? “I swear to god I’ll kill you in the morning.”

“Love you too, Riku.”

\-----

They both slept too late; when Riku woke up, the sun was nearly directly in his face. His mouth tasted weird, too, like smoke. And something fizzy, too, like he’d burnt his tongue. He didn’t like it very much. It tasted like Sora’s magic had gone wrong.

“Hey,” Sora breathed. His voice was still whispery, like he couldn’t talk.

Riku squirmed around so he could see Sora’s face. In the light, he could see the bruise on Sora’s cheek was brilliant and purple and a few days old, but he looked alive, cognizant like he hadn’t been last night. He reached out, carefully, to run a finger across the bruising on Sora’s neck, which looked so much worse in the light. Sora raised his neck up with a slight wince, letting Riku inspect. One he was satisfied, he pressed a kiss to the bruise on Sora’s cheek, wishing he had any healing powers to help it along. “Thank _god_.” His own voice was rough too. “You scared me.”

Sora pressed a kiss to Riku’s forehead. “I didn’t mean to,” because of course he never meant to, but Sora was good at giving it his all, and if an exorcism needed everything he had, he’d probably give that. Whatever he’d been doing in the spirit world, he’d just given a lot more than what he’d had. 

Riku pressed a gentle thumb to the purple circles under his eyes. He still looked pale and exhausted even though they’d both been sleeping - he peeked at the clock - almost fifteen hours. “You just really scared me,” he repeated, because what else could he say? There was no use in asking Sora not to do it again, because he would. He’d give everything and more over and over again if it meant helping someone even a little bit, and Riku wouldn’t change that for anything. If he changed that even a little, Sora would be someone so completely knew Riku would never be able to recognize him. 

He just - he’d just have to make sure Sora was as careful as possible. He’d have to be there for him no matter what.

Maybe Sora understood all this, maybe he didn’t. It was enough for him to throw his arm over Riku’s waist, heavy and warm, and say, “I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m going to fall asleep again,” Sora mumbled.

“It’s been, like, fifteen hours. I feel _awful_.”

Sora snickered. “Sorry.” He didn’t really sound like he was.

“And my mouth tastes gross,” Riku added, just for good measure. Sora’s snickers turned into full-body laughter, his chest shaking against Riku’s. Riku felt impossibly happy to have Sora back in his arms, that he could _hold_ his battered body. Then, because Riku could, because all was fair in love and war and morning breath, he leaned over and pressed his mouth to Sora’s. 

Sora jerked away, laughter fading. “What is that?”

“_Told_ you my mouth tasted - hey!” Sora had leaned forward and kissed him again, shoving his tongue into Riku’s mouth with no finesse. He pulled back, licking his lips, his face puzzled. Riku stared at him. “Did you damage your brain last night too?”

Sora sat up, wincing as he rubbed at his shoulder. “Riku, can you remember your dream last night?”

This was by far the most confusing conversation they’d ever had while cuddling, but Riku had learned by now to answer first, question later. There was usually a point, somewhere. “Uh, I think I was napping in a hammock,” he said slowly, trying to gather all the pieces back up. It was hard to keep hold of them in the light of day. “You were there, I guess it was the beach?”

“I threw sand at someone and he got angry and tipped our hammock, right?”

Riku tilted his head. “Uh, yeah.” He pushed himself into an upright position too, the covers pooling at his waist. “Were you in my dream?”

Sora buried his face in his hands. Riku had missed a cut alongside his thumb earlier, but it didn’t look too bad. “You were in mine,” Sora said despairingly. “That’s why your mouth tastes like that.”

“It’s just morning breath.”

Sora huffed, peeking at Riku through his fingers. “It tastes like dream magic, Riku!”

_Dream magic tastes like shit, then_, Riku thought. “Sora,” he said, as patiently as he could. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Sora said, which wasn’t any sort of answer. “I mean, usually only witches with dream magic can enter other dreams, but you would probably know if you were a dream eater.”

“I _ate _it?”

Sora clearly didn’t seem alarmed by _that_ part of it. “Sorry. Usually my dreams don’t taste so bad.”

Riku pressed his face into the pillow for just a second. Then, because he was curious and he’d already done far more ridiculous things, he asked, “And what do your dreams usually taste like?”

“I don’t know, I’m not the one who tastes them.” Sora groaned again. It was probably paopu fruit then. “Oh, god, I haven’t redone my wards in a while and then I was so exhausted last night - sorry, Riku, I’m really sorry.”

Riku poked Sora’s face. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it, even.”

“It’s just really not polite to bring people into your dreams and I _knew_ you were really sensitive to them, because you kept dreaming them when you first moved in and that’s why I put up the wards on the door and -”

“Sora, breathe,” Riku reminded him. “I - it’s really okay. Kind of weird, but okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Sora said miserably. “I don’t know why – I guess it could be the tree?”

“The tree?”

“The tree!” Sora flapped his hands around. Riku probably shouldn’t find it cute, because Sora looked stressed, but Riku wasn’t sure what was so bad about a shared dream. “The paopu tree we carved our initials on, remember, we shared the fruit?”

Riku thought about it for a moment. “Oh, right.” The memory was hazy, but he did remember saying that to Sora ages ago, right after Sora had revealed his curse. He remembered sharing the paopu fruit with _some _boy with kind eyes. He couldn’t remember the boy’s face, but he knew Sora’s face now, and it was easy to put them together. Since he knew they were one in the same. “Huh.”

Sora made to climb out of bed. “I should talk to Kairi and see-”

Riku snagged his shirt as Sora tried to climb over him and Sora collapsed against Riku’s chest with an _oof_. “Oh no you don’t,” Riku said, because as cute and endearing as seeing Sora get focused on magical research, Sora had been gone for three weeks and Riku liked the way the bed felt with two people in it. Besides, he’d never driven himself crazy to figure out why R could see him, and he still hadn’t figured it out. “You slept through our reunion; you don’t get to go running off!”

Sora giggled, folding his arms and propping his chin up on Riku’s chest. “You missed me?”

“I burnt my fingers cooking,” Riku told him, which wasn’t even a lie. Not that the burn had been that bad anyways, it just proved that Riku couldn’t cook anything more difficult than pasta. He knew Sora would understand what he meant, which was _yes, I missed you_. _Yes, the bed was empty without you. Yes, I missed you, but even better, I wasn’t alone. _Sora had given Riku more than just himself, he’d given Riku a family.

“Poor baby,” Sora _tsk_ed, turning his head and kissing those fingers, the ones that had been carding through his hair.

Riku kept his voice light. “Yeah, well,” he said. “It’s been very tough. So don’t think I’m not still mad at you!” He wasn’t, and Sora knew it, but Sora still buried his face in Riku’s chest ashamedly.

“I’m _sorry_!” His voice was voice muffled as he pulled the covers over the both of them, casting out the light. “It wasn’t a water spirit after all, and it was kind of angry. I didn’t want to lead it back here, that’s why it took me so long. I sent messages.”

Riku softened. “I know.” He slid a hand up Sora’s arm. He avoided the bruising on the neck this time and instead smoothed a hand through Sora’s hair, which definitely hadn’t been washed in a while. It was gross, but Riku hadn’t washed these sheets since he sweated through them with his cold, so he figured fair was fair. “Thank you. I’m not mad at you, really, I was just - I was worried, that’s all.”

Sora ran his careful fingers through Riku’s hair too. Riku leaned into the touch, happy to stay here under the covers in the dim lights forever. Sora sighed. “I should get up,” he said regretfully. “And fix the wards.”

“I really don’t care,” Riku repeated. He didn’t care about any of that. If he spent every night running around in Sora’s dreams, he wouldn’t care, so long as Sora was by his side. Riku tugged at a lock of Sora’s hair, making him smile. “Don’t make me have a fight over some weird dream instead of how much stress my heart took last night, okay?”

Sora giggled, sliding down a little farther until he could fit under Riku’s arms. Riku grinned, triumphant. It was fine, as long as they were together. They’d face whatever was next. Riku was confident in that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter today folks! we're getting close to the end!!
> 
> also the person who asked about r's powers . i actually have no idea!!!! lmao i just thought it would be cool if r could see sora so i made it happen dfgdfgdfg


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its been ten million years everyone anyways have the penultimate chapter!

There was someone lounging on the front porch steps as Riku turned into the driveway. Anxiety uncurled in Riku’s stomach somewhere, because he _hated _to leave people waiting. Which was why it took him a few moments to realize that he didn’t actually _know _this person. All he could see of them from the driveway was their ripped black jeans, sprawled across the green grass like he owned the entire house, and spiky black hair, but he was sure he didn’t know anyone like that. He nudged Sora as he turned off the car, fingers lingering on Sora’s wrist. “Are you expecting someone?”

Sora leaned over Riku to peer at them, his hair right in Riku’s face, then said, in a horrified tone, “Oh shit.” He shoved the door open and raced towards the front, where Riku could hear him say “Oh_ shit_” again. Later Riku would probably find it funny how quickly he got out of the car, leaving his backpack and his phone and his _keys_ behind, still in the ignition, but he just didn’t know how Sora was doing and he didn’t like that.

“Oh shit is _right_, little brother,” the guy snarled, standing up as Riku approached. On the steps, he was much taller than them, a black smear against the warmth and comfort of the house. Riku could _really _see the resemblance - whichever brother this was, he looked exactly like Sora would in ten years if Sora decided to dye his hair pitch-black and get face piercings. They looked fine, but Riku really hoped he didn’t.

“And you’re mad,” Sora concluded.

“No, I’m not mad at all!” the guy spread his arms wide dramatically as he clomped down the stairs. This was probably a fine time to be dramatic, Riku would give him that. But he hated the oily words and the posturing, the anger. Shouldn’t this brother simply be glad? He was given a _gift_. “Why would I be mad that I forgot my brother existed for five years? I can’t _imagine _why that would upset me.”

“Okay,” Sora said, practically vibrating with - with what? Excitement? Fear? Nerves? Some ungodly combination of all three, since Sora could easily feel fifty emotions at one time without breaking a sweat. Riku reached out, tough light, to rest a hand at the small to Sora’s back and he stilled, for just an instant, grounded. “I totally get that, but also I really need to hug you.”

The brother considered. “Okay, but you have to know that when you’re hugging me, I’m mad.”

“Deal!” Sora cheered and he threw his arms around his brother’s shoulders. Whichever brother this was hugged him back, so that was something at least. The anger on his face soothed a little bit, looking a lot closer to Sora’s face as he pulled his little brother close, his trembling hands fisting in Sora’s shirt. Sora hung onto him for a long time, longer than even Sora’s longer than usual hugs, before he pulled back and turned to Riku. “Riku, this is my brother Vanitas!”

Vanitas, who had so far not bothered to look Riku’s way, did look at him and his face turned angry again, the moment’s peace from Sora’s hug shattering like glass. Riku decided he actually preferred not being looked a lot more. “Riku? _Riku_ gets to fucking be here? I can’t believe you let him remember you over _us-” _he took a step towards Riku, like he was going to start something.

Riku took a step back. He might be taller than Vanitas, but he looked _really_ pissed and Riku had never been in a fight before.

Sora pushed Vanitas back with one hand flat on his sternum, hardly bothered. Maybe Vanitas was prone to bad moods. _“_He doesn’t.”

Vanitas blinked, looking from Sora to Riku and back again like that would solve things. It clearly didn’t. “He doesn’t?”

“He doesn’t remember anything.” A sad twist of a smile lingered on his face. That was unusual, now, he didn’t usually get so melancholic when he talked about his curse. The effects of family, Riku supposed. Sora had been close with his in a way Riku never had. He couldn’t understand it, couldn’t really begin to comprehend what Sora had lost. He’d only barely started texting his brother. “He forgot when you did. I just - he kinda moved in by accident?”

Vanitas sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus fucking Christ, Sora,” he said, and he pulled his little brother into another hug.

At least Riku knew who had taught Sora to swear now.

Vanitas came in, of course, and Sora offered him some something to eat. 

Riku had heard a little bit about Vanitas, even if his name hadn’t been part of those stories. He’d been slowly coaxing Sora into talking about his brothers and Sora, sometimes, would actually do it. Usually he’d trail off in the middle of a story, like he was lost, and Riku would touch his elbow and murmur “you okay?”

What he knew about Sora’s brothers was this: Sora and Roxas had been close, since they were only a year apart. His two older brothers were twins, and they’d never really been that close with Roxas and Sora, seeing as there were nearly twelve years in between them. Roxas and one twin didn’t have a lot of magical power on their own, not like Sora and the other twin did, but they definitely had enough to still _see_ Sora, just not enough to remember.

But Vanitas now - well, he mostly settled between looking kind of pissed and kind of in awe, horrified recognition flitting across his face that he wasn’t trying to hide. Riku wondered what it felt like to just - suddenly remember Sora. To wake up and remember your little brother, after - he had said five years. Everything he’d known for the past five years had been a lie, and it all must tangle with the truth, the truth that he’d lived his life completely ignorant of his brother’s existence. He should have been there.

“Is he ever going to sit down,” Vanitas asked Riku in a low voice. They were both at the counter, watching Sora’s back as he made them all grilled cheeses. Vanitas didn’t seem to want to sit, he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“He cooks when he’s stressed,” Riku whispered back.

“Since _when_,” Vanitas mumbled, and Riku stored that information away. Sora hadn’t always cooked, then.

Eventually Sora slid them three pristine grilled cheese, glistening with butter. “So.” Riku couldn’t even begin to think about eating right now, but Vanitas dove in. “Vani, how did you, uh, get here? Remember things.”

“I just woke up and remembered,” Vanitas said through a mouth full of cheese. “Roxas and Ven don’t, which I know because I called them and made Ven cry, but they don’t. You wanna explain to me how this happened?”

“I had to save Kairi’s life,” Sora explained, like it was simple. “It was the price I paid.”

Vanitas groaned. “You’re such a stupid shit.” He tossed the crust of the grilled cheese on the plate. His dozens of rings winked in the light. “_Five years_, Sora? You’ve just been living without family for five years? If I leave right now, is it just gonna make me forget you again?”

“No,” Sora reassured him. He didn’t seem too keen on telling Vanitas that _oh, it’s not just memories, actually no one can see me!_ Riku almost wanted to do it for him, like ripping the band aid off, because he knew, without fail, that Sora would take on any hurts to ease someone else’s pain. “You should be, um, okay? I don’t know, actually, you’re the only one who’s remembered me.”

“And Riku?” Vanitas quirked a thumb over at Riku. “I never liked you, you know.”

“I have no memory of you whatsoever,” Riku said, which admittedly, felt pretty good. Even if it carried a tiny bit of sadness – _Vanitas_ could clearly recognize him. Riku stared down at the napkin on the counter and wished with everything he had that he could remember Sora too. It seemed too big a wish to ever be granted.

It just made Vanitas look a little sad, though. He didn’t frown but there was something familiar about his eyes, something Sora-esque, like the light behind them had dimmed. Even if his weren’t blue, Riku could recognize the look. “Sora, come on.” He swallowed down the pleading tone in his voice, and when he next spoke it was more of a complaining whine, hiding his worry away. “Why didn’t you come find us?”

“I had no way to make you believe me,” Sora insisted, instead of saying _I wasn’t sure that if I did, Kairi would be safe_, which was something he’d whispered to Riku once, just as Riku was falling asleep. He clearly didn’t want to get into it. For him, it was all in the past. He’d made himself keep it there.

For Vanitas, he was looking at the ruins of a family with brand-new eyes.

“You’d have figured it out, you’re our brother,” Vanitas said desperately. “Did you know we’re all close now?” Sora flinched as he had been struck. Riku wanted to reach out and get Vanitas to stop, but he just kept going, running his stupid mouth, every word landing like it was a punch. “I don’t - I don’t know how it happened, but you made us close. We text all the time. Roxas was telling me about his boring classes just yesterday. You know he chose a major?”

“History.” The napkin under Sora’s hand disappeared into his fist, a tiny wrinkled paper ball. “I know. He’s, uh. He’s friends with my other roommate.”

“Is that still your major?”

“I didn’t go to college.” He refused to look up from his own plate, ears reddening. “No one can see me, Vani.”

“I - what?”

“No one can see me. That’s the curse. It’s not just forgetting. I live in the spirit world now, and no one can see me.”

Vanitas swiveled his head around and stared at Riku. “But Riku can see you.” he squinted. “Did you get any fucking magic while I was out, kid?”

“We shared a paopu fruit before everything happened.” Sora’s voice sounded flat, like nothing meant anything, which was more painful than anything Riku could think of. Especially about _this_, the only magic that still linked them together. Something Riku thought about every day, the phantom memory of Sora’s hands, his smile. “You know how magic works. But - everyone else, they just don’t see me, okay?”

“Sora-”

“I don’t want your pity,” Sora snarled, shoving back from the table. “I’m _fine_, Vani! I’m happy! I’m really happy, okay-”

“Sora, you’re crying,” Riku said softly, standing up from the stool. The worst part of it was that Sora probably was really happy. It might suck, sometimes, but Riku knew that Sora loved his friends and loved their house and their cat. He probably wouldn’t dream of wishing for anything else. “Vanitas, maybe you should go-”

“Like hell I will.”

“It’s fine,” Sora said, wiping at his eyes. His shoulders were trembling. “Vanitas knows I’m a crybaby, always have been. That hasn’t changed.”

Vanitas flinched back. “Sora, I’m sorry, but you can’t just - am I supposed to lie to Ven and Roxas for forever, then?”

“You weren’t supposed to find out!” Sora scrubbed at his face, furiously wiping away tears. “No one was supposed to find out! I don’t even know how you _found_ out!”

“Yeah, how did I find out?” Vanitas threw his arm around Sora, guiding him to the couch. It may have been five years, but he clearly still knew what to do when his baby brother was crying. He rooted around in his pocket and produced one of those travel packs of tissues. “Hey - here -”

“Thanks,” Sora mumbled, blowing his nose loudly.

Riku busied himself with cleaning up the plates. He could tell that Sora just - need his brother to take care of him. He tried not to listen, instead sliding his untouched grilled cheese into a Ziploc bag for tomorrow. He’d moved on to washing the dishes when he stiffened, practically feeling their eyes on him.

He turned around, a dish in one hand. They _were_ both looking at him, twin expressions on their faces. It was honestly _very _weird. “What?”

“I was telling Vanitas about our dream.” The tear tracks were clear on his face but at least he’d stopped crying. Vanitas’s arm was still wrapped around his shoulder. “My wards hadn’t been done in a while and you shared my dream, remember. And Vanitas was there, too.”

“Right, I remember.” Or, well, he remembered waking up, not so much the dream itself. Like most dreams, it had slipped away no matter how he tried to cling to it, and Sora had redone the wards on the back of their door the morning after, in bright white chalk, so it wasn’t like he’d had any more.

“But I don’t know how Riku did it,” Sora added, slinging an arm across the back of the couch. Riku _saw_ Vanitas notice the faint rough scars on his upper arm, from that first burn ages ago, the first time Riku had known anything was strange.

He saw Vanitas decide to ignore and instead make an annoyed face. “I guess I can call Master Xehanort and ask.”

Sora made a face. “Ew, are you still apprenticed to that guy?”

“He got back together with his ex-husband and he really mellowed out after that,” Vanitas said, hardly concerned. “Guess the sex is _that _good.” He ignored Sora’s faint, pained _oh my god_. “He still has a hard-on for magical science, though.”

“I’m not an experiment!”

“I know, I know.” Vanitas waved an airy hand around like this was hardly a bother. “I’ll be vague. I’ll just mention the paopu thing, see what he thinks.”

“You think it’s the paopu?”

“Honestly I have no _fucking_ idea,” Vanitas said, taking out a cigarette and placing it between his lips. “Can I smoke in here? I dropped out of magic school, remember? Riku doesn’t have magic so like, I just don’t fucking know, okay?”

“You can’t smoke,” Sora told him, wrinkling his nose. “And I couldn’t figure it out either.” He didn’t look at Riku as he said the second part, probably because he hadn’t _told_ Riku he was going to try and figure out what it meant. He _had_ been spending an awful lot of nights at the library lately, taking advantage of the fact that they couldn’t tell him to leave with all the other patrons.

“Okay, I’ll call him,” Vanitas mumbled around the cigarette. “Problem solved.”

“It’s not a _problem_,” Sora stressed, shrugging off Vanitas’s hand. He plucked the cigarette from Vanitas’s mouth in one smooth motion and shoved it into the front pocket of his shirt.

“It is too a problem! I forgot how annoying you were.” Vanitas was trying to get the cigarette back. Sora pushed him away with one foot and for a moment, they seemed perfectly okay. “Like, _way_ more annoying than Roxas.”

Sora laughed. “The student can’t surpass the master!” He clambered over the couch, handing the cigarette back. “Okay. I - you should go, I’m - tired, okay?”

“I haven’t seen you in _five years_-”

“Vani,” Sora said, and he suddenly sounded not just tired but completely worn out. Miserable exhaustion settled over his entire body, like he’d fall over if someone so much as looked at him. Riku had seen him look like this before, but he wondered if Vanitas ever had. From what Riku could gather, Sora had been a really happy child. “I’m really tired.”

Vanitas looked at him. “Yeah, okay.” He pulled Sora in for one last hug, a long one. “I’m going to call you tomorrow morning, okay? I - okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

And then Vanitas was gone. Sora let out a long groan, bracing his hands against his back like he was an old man who couldn’t straighten it anymore.

Riku reached out to him like he might break under his fingers. Sora leaned into his touch, though, so Riku reeled him in, oddly grateful that he was allowed, until Sora was tucked against his chest. His entire body felt tense, his shoulders up around his ears. Riku wanted to smooth it away. “Uh, how do you feel?”

“Fucking tired,” Sora mumbled. He twisted around, torso moving under Riku’s hands, and pressed a kiss to the underside of Riku’s jaw. “Happy, but really really tired.”

Riku could understand that. Vanitas had… a presence, even if he hadn’t come with the extra baggage of been family. Navigating everything must have been hard and as unfailingly social as Sora was, talking to your brother for the first time in years was bound to go - well. Not well. It wasn’t the same as Riku talking to R, who at least he remembered.

So Riku didn’t say what he wanted to say, which was _maybe there’s a chance for you to come back_. Vanitas had said it plenty and Sora was about to start sleeping where he stood, and Riku wasn't going to add on to that, not just yet. Besides, he didn’t even know if it was possible. So he put a hand on Sora’s shoulder and carefully steered him up the stairs, while Sora mumbled on and on, the words barely able to be made out. He pushed Sora onto the bed and promised that he wasn’t going to force the topic.

Vanitas, apparently, didn’t have the same considerations for Sora’s mental state. Riku wasn’t going to blame him, not _really _\- five years and you’re the only one in your family to remember you had an additional brother couldn’t be very easy. Because apparently Roxas and Ven, the other one, still didn’t remember -- but he _was_ still yelling the next day when they came back.

He’d taken Sora to go see his old master or something, and Sora had been cheerful enough when they left, but they were both unhappy now, coming back in the house. Riku could hear the yelling from the porch, even as he sat up a little straight on the couch and put his laptop on the coffee table.

“I’m _happy_ right now,” Sora was saying as they step inside, door slamming behind him. He definitely didn’t seem happy at the moment. He stopped to take his shoes off, leaving them in a jumble near the door next to a pair of Naminé’s blue sneakers but Van was annoyed enough that he didn’t do the same.

“We’re your fucking family!”

“And it’s my fucking life and my fucking decision!” Sora barely even cut a glance at Riku on the couch as he stomped through the living room, Vanitas stomping behind him even louder in his boots, tracking in a bit of water from the rain earlier. “You _haven’t _been a part of my life for the last five years so who says you get to have a say?”

Vanitas reeled back like Sora had punched him. Riku winced. It might have been true, and he might have been thinking it himself, but clearly, he was stressed and looking to start a fight and push people away. It was probably easier to run then it was to face the fact that five years ago, he’d been a different person. Now, his brother might no longer recognize him.

Vanitas clearly had no idea what to say in response to that. Sora took the opportunity to run up the stairs, the slam of the door echoing through all the house and Vanitas found his words. “Fuck you!”

“Hey,” Riku said, throwing his arm out so that Vanitas couldn’t go up the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“Shit for brains up there doesn’t want me to try and get him back,” Vanitas snarled. He smelled like cigarette smoke. “I’m not accepting that, though. Let me up there.”

Riku stood firm. “You should go.” He couldn’t do a lot in this situation, with no magic and only second-hand magical knowledge, but he could do this. Regardless of how his heart leapt when he realized how much Vanitas wanted to drag Sora back to the living world, even if he had to pull him by the hair to do it. “He’ll call you tomorrow.”

Vanitas scowled at him. “You should be on my side,” he growled. “Don’t you want to be able to take your boyfriend out?”

Riku _really _didn’t know why people kept assuming he was a person who liked to go out. “I’ll talk to him,” he promised Vanitas, who brightened. “But it’s Sora’s life. Whatever _he_ wants to do, I’ll do.”

“It’s our family,” Vanitas spat, but he did, thankfully, leave. Not before poking Riku in the chest a few times, though. Jerk.

Riku rubbed at his chest and padded up the stairs, ignoring the damp rug and the wet footprints. “Sora? Vanitas left.”

“Great.”

“Can I come in?”

“You can always come in,” Sora grumbled, and Riku clicked the door open. As per usual, Sora was lying on the bed, face buried in the pillows. It was his default place to go when he was upset and Riku hoped that it meant that Sora wanted him to come in. Or didn’t mind. He’d take either, so long as Sora was at least marginally willing to talk to him. As long as he could provide _something_.

“Want to tell me why Vanitas was so upset?”

“No,” Sora mumbled, but he rolled over, allowing Riku to sat down the edge of the bed next to him. “He just - he wanted - he thinks you’re the reason he remembered, right, because of the paopu and - he wants to try and get me out of the spirit world, using you.”

Riku’s breath caught and he quickly ran his hand over Sora’s back to distract him from that. Riku wasn’t - couldn’t think about what he wanted. An actual _theory_, not just yelling, not just the both of them wanting. “And that’s bad?”

“I’m fine as is.”

“But,” Riku said, and he knew it was a bad idea from the tense set of Sora’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t that be good?”

“I’m _fine_!”

“But you’re sad,” Riku said without even meaning to. Sora jerked his elbow up so that Riku’s hand fell away. Riku swallowed. “I just meant - don’t you miss everyone?”

“Of course I do, but the past is the past, it’s not like I can - fix it, or whatever, it was just high school. I’m here _now_.”

“It’s your family.” He didn’t reach out for Sora again. Instead he looked around the room, their room. Riku’s jacket on the ground, because Sora had worn it out and tossed it on the ground this morning. The candle Chirithy had knocked over and the wards, done in chalk, that had caused all this. It wasn’t a bad room; it wasn’t a bad life. But there was more to life than just a room. “Sora, you could be _seen _again-”

Sora sat up suddenly, startling Riku. “I knew it.” He was frowning, face flushed and clearly angry, stubbornly crossed his arms. He hadn’t looked like this at Riku before, anger written into every action he took. “I knew you’d get tired of it, Riku, I _said_ you’d want someone who can just be in the world and drive and go to college and - and get groceries by himself-”

He was so stupid. Riku loved him. “Sora, I’m happy to go to the grocery store with you for the rest of my _life._” He chanced reaching out for Sora’s trembling shoulder, sliding his palm until it sat against his neck, Sora’s pulse under his thumb. “I don’t care. I _like _going to the grocery store with you even though it takes you ages to pick out the right fruit and they all look the same! I’m happy when I’m with you, okay, but if there’s a single chance you don’t have to carry this weight around, I want to do it for you!”

Sora gaped at him, clearly speechless. It took him ages for him to find the words, hands clenching and unclenching the quilt under his hands like that would help him find the answer. Riku could watch forever, watch the shock in his wide blue eyes turn to quiet acceptance, then blinding joy. His mouth curved into a smile. “Forever, huh?”

Riku felt Sora’s hand find his. “Forever,” he agreed, mouth dry, heart pounding. He hadn’t said _I love you_ yet but they both knew that this was it. Riku thought he could even hear it in the tone of his voice, quiet and a little scared. He didn’t know why he was.

Sora pressed a kiss to Riku’s knuckles. “You think I’m being silly.”

“No, I don’t. I think you’re probably scared.” He squeezed Sora’s hand. “I’m a little scared too.”

“Of what?” Sora sounded genuinely curious.

“I - well. I guess I’d be worried I’d change if I remembered everything.” It plagued him more than anything. Everything else about Sora returning to the human world could only be good. He had no worries that Sora would leave him for someone else once he could easily pay rent. “I like who I am right now. Am I very different?”

Sora hummed. “You grew,” he said, which wasn’t an answer, really. “But that’s supposed to happen.”

Riku snorted. “I meant in a less tangible sense.”

Sora smiled. “I meant you grew in a less tangible sense.” He poked Riku’s cheek. “You smile more? You touch me more.” He sighed. “I think you feel more settled, but you’re just the same Riku I’ve always known.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

Sora sat up, wrapping his arms around Riku’s waist. Riku thought that it should be the other way around, if he was supposed to be the one comforting Sora, but Sora liked to hold Riku and Riku liked to be held. “So you think I should do it.”

“I - think you should do what you want.” He didn’t want to push.

He felt Sora’s frown press into his back. “I want you to say what you want me to do,” Sora mumbled. “I - it’s your future too, Riku.”

Hearing that felt like a blow, honestly. “I want you to try,” Riku said, all in a rush. “I - not because I have a problem with it, I swear I don’t, I’m - I’m so happy with you here. But I think - I think it might be good for you?” He swallowed, forged on. “I know you miss them. So much. Don’t you want to talk to them again?”

“What if all changes because I was gone for so long?”

Riku tilted his head back. Here they were, at the crux of the problem. It always took a bit of digging to get the real issue out of Sora. “It probably will,” Riku said, watching the ceiling fan go around and around. There was no way it couldn’t, not after five years. Sora had refused to sit still and mourn those five years and it meant that he was no longer the same brother he always had been. But Riku rather liked the Sora he was now, regardless of whether or not he remembered who he’d been. “But I don’t think it’ll get worse. And it’ll never get better if you do nothing.”

Sora sighed. “What if it doesn’t work?”

Riku didn’t have an answer for that. He gave Sora a helpless smile. “Then I’ll still be here.” It was all he could promise.

Sora pressed a kiss to the back of Riku’s neck. “I’m scared that I can’t fix everything,” he whispered, pressing kisses around Riku’s neck until he reached Riku’s jaw, his cheek, his lips. “What if I can’t?”

Riku didn’t know. He had absolutely no answers for that. “I’ll be there,” he promised clumsily. That was the easiest part, the promising. He had no intention of ever breaking it. “I’ll be there with you no matter what.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i ddint write the vanitas waking up n remembering sora scene but basicalyl he calls ventus immediately like "do you remember Sora” and ven is like . dude its five am. and vanitas is like I DONT CARE DO U REMMEBER OUR SHIT HEAD LIL BROTHER? and ven just goes "did you. call me at five am just to rag on roxas?"


	9. Chapter 9

They planned it for December. Riku hadn’t really had much say in it, beyond confirming that he wasn’t going back to Destiny Islands for Christmas. He didn’t know or particularly care about stages of the moon and seasons, so he let everyone else make the decision.

Sora didn’t really have much say in it either, beyond Xion saying, “Oh, Sora, you’ll be able to spend Christmas with your family!” and him replying, “No, I’ll be with Riku.”

There was apparently a full moon, mid-December. Vanitas had convinced Ventus to come, which had probably taken a lot of work considering everything Riku had heard about the guy, and Sora had asked Aqua, who was going to be bringing Terra. Ventus was willing to come, but he didn’t – didn’t wanted to see Sora before it all happened. Sora put on a brave face at that, which broke Riku’s heart a little. Sora could say all he wanted that he didn’t want to see his brother either, and it might have even been some of the truth, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t still hurt.

Vanitas had _tried_ to convince Roxas to come, but he hadn’t wanted to. Vanitas had even gone so far as to drive him over to the house and shove him in front of Sora, who stood frozen on the porch with the gardening hose in his hand like a deer caught in headlights.

“This is a stupid prank, he doesn’t even look that much like you,” Roxas grumbled, crossing his arms. Riku was remembering how much he didn’t like this kid. Vanitas and Sora were practically carbon copies of each other, right to the way they both scrunched their noses up when they were thinking. “Vani, let’s _go_-”

Xion darted around Sora from inside, grabbing Roxas’s hand. “Roxas,” she said earnestly, shaking Roxas’s hand up and down and sideways. Riku had forgotten they were friends. “I wouldn’t prank you-”

“You _would_-”

“Not about this!” Xion declared. “Don’t you remember all the times when you thought about your family and it just felt wrong? When you chose your major and you said _oh my brother’s major is history_ and then you got that stupid look on your face, like you had a brain freeze, and said _no I don’t have a brother who likes history_-”

“Stop it,” Sora said, tugging at her orange t-shirt. He left damp fingerprints behind. “Stop it, Xion, _please_ stop-”

“_You_ stop-” Roxas said hotly.

“You’re both so _stupid_,” Xion said, wiping at her face angrily. “I’ve known the _whole time_ that Roxas was your brother, Sora, I tried to tell, him, I really did-”

Sora looked like he’d been slapped, but then Xion was crying. He dropped the hose and gathered Xion up in his arms, resting his chin on her head. Roxas glared at them like comforting Xion was supposed to be his job. He was completely oblivious to the water soaking through his shoes.

Riku put his hands in his face. “You couldn’t have just lied to him,” he mumbled to Vanitas, who was watching the whole scene with a sick sort of fascination. “What good did you think bringing him here would do? You could have just told him there was some bullshit ritual going on?”

“He wouldn’t have showed for that.”

Riku gestured helplessly. “You’ve made them both have a crisis.”

“I’m fine,” Sora and Roxas said in unison. It made Sora give him a watery smile over Xion’s shoulder, and Roxas gave him one back, confused but not as angry. Some sort of progress, then. There was no going back now, not really. Even if it didn’t work, even if no one regained a single solitary memory, Roxas and Ventus both knew about Sora now. 

Two brothers remembered, and two didn’t. Riku hoped against hope that this worked out, because he was pretty sure Sora wouldn’t be able to handle if it didn’t.

\-----

Riku hadn’t really considered what it would be like to have twenty-plus people in their house, only some of whom could actually _see_ Sora. Ven and Roxas kept navigating around him awkwardly, because they knew he was supposed to be their brother but they didn’t remember that. They could only remember the way Vani kept poking Sora and telling bad jokes and making him laugh, treating him like the little brother he was. It was familiar even if the subject wasn’t and Ventus kept cringing a little bit when neither of them were looking.

Aqua could obviously see Sora, but Terra could only see him if he was holding Ven or Aqua’s hand. Aqua herself alternated between looking _furious_ that Sora hadn’t told her he was the brother of one of her best friends and just looking sad. None of the friends Riku remembered from Destiny Islands could see him, and Kairi’s brother Axel was having difficulties seeing him too; he kept squinting like he had a migraine. There were a couple of people that Riku had had to call himself because neither Xion or Naminé knew them. It had been a very weird conversation with a guy named Leon, listing off what was going on and no, Riku couldn’t prove this, but could he bring Cloud, Cid, Aerith and Yuffie with him? They wandered around in a small pack, not sure what to do with the rest of the party, who all seemed to know each other in odd tangible ways.

Sora kept watching Roxas interact with his boyfriend Hayner with sad eyes, no doubt thinking about all that he’d missed. Xion had told him that they’d been together for almost two years now, and Sora shot her a big smile, too big.

After a few minutes, Sora migrated to sitting on the kitchen counter, out of the way. People kept bumping into him, making him stumble. Saix was a big guy and he’d nearly bulldozed Sora while getting some water.

Riku joined him there, arms crossed. With Sora on the counter and Riku leaning against it, Sora was several inches taller. “You okay?”

“I’m nervous as all hell,” Sora said flatly, rubbing at his chest like his heart hurt. He’d be doing that a lot lately. Riku reached over and took his hand just to have something to do. “I just - I’m just nervous. These are all people I _know_. I mean, I really know! I told them all things I never told anyone else before, and I can’t, like, confirm this, but I think they did the same with me.” He sighed. “Roxas and I shared a room our whole lives. Ven taught me how to drive. I remember - fuck, I remember Roxas wanting to go visit Axel where he worked at the Hot Topic and I had to drive him, because he didn’t have his license yet.”

Riku pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. “It’ll be okay.”

“You’re just saying that ‘cause I said I’d break up with you if it didn’t work.”

“Yeah, but you’re not gonna,” Riku said smugly. Sora kicked at him half-heartedly, a ghost of a grin on his face, and Riku thought _there you are_. He hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, the true sunshiny unfiltered Sora that he loved so much. “It’s almost midnight, you ready to go?”

Sora nodded. Chugged an entire glass of water. “Let’s go.”

Naminé gathered them all in the living room. All of the furniture had been pushed aside, the couch pressed up against the patio doors like a barricade. There was already a magical circle drawn on the wood floor in chalk. Riku didn’t know much about the ritual, but it seemed simple enough. Sora and Naminé had spent nights sitting down in the living, neither of them sleeping, pouring through hundreds of texts, some from the library and some taken from Aqua’s shop, and some that Naminé and Xion had actually drive three towns over for, to borrow from a local group.

Well, anything was simple enough in theory, but in practice - who knew?

“If we can just make a circle and hold hands,” Naminé said, gesturing. Sora stood in the center of the room. Naminé, Xion, and Kairi circled him. “Some of you - well, none of you remember Sora, but some of you can see him. Just - focus your energy on him. Those of you who can’t see him, think about him. Think about him as a brother or a friend or someone you loved or someone your friends loved, just - _only_ think of him.”

Kairi leaned over to whisper something in Sora’s ear and Sora elbowed her playfully, looking less like his world might end. Around him, everyone organized into a circle, linking hands. Riku ended up between Vanitas and Roxas, who took his hand with a sour expression.

“With any luck, after this we might remember why you hate me,” Riku told him, which made Roxas both snort and glare at him which was a very funny look.

“That’ll be a fucking perk,” Roxas said seriously, squeezing Riku’s hand like he was trying to break it.

“It’s midnight,” Kairi called, accompanied by the faint chime of the hall clock upstairs. “Let’s make some magic.”

There were a few assorted chuckles and then a blast of wind as their magic glowed to life under their feet. Xion’s was the most familiar, from the few exorcisms Riku had seen her do, and the gold shone under her like a sun, in rays and beams until it was almost too bright to look at. Kairi’s was pink, blooming out from under her like a flower before spreading into waves. Riku had never seen Naminé’s magic like this, pale blue, and settling across the floor in jagged spikes. She was usually so private about it. They all crept out, settling into themselves, and resolving into three magic circles, unique and overlapping. 

Sora’s magic, too, came to life.

Riku had never seen it like _this _before. He’d seen little hints of Sora’s power, for the little magic he did. That one exorcism Riku had tagged along to, his magic had been spliced with Xion’s. But this was a brilliant white, swirling circle, transforming itself into clouds, waves, then a flock of birds flying across the floor. Even if most people in the room couldn’t see _Sora_, they could see his magic lighting up the entire room like it was day. Across the circle, Hayner’s face lit up as he gaped at the floor. They could hear the rush of magic, like wind and storms and white noise.

Roxas, next to Riku, was crying. Riku didn’t know if he remembered or if he just keenly felt the loss, as the birds swarmed his feet, circling him a few times before flying off to Ven. “I remember this magic,” he whispered. His own magic appeared, green and faint, setting off a chain reaction around the circle. Aqua’s, Ven’s, then Terra’s. Axel’s magic looked like flames around him and as it lit up, his eyes opened wide, staring down Sora in the middle of the circle.

Riku knew it was working because everything was flooding back in. Roxas next to Riku doubled over with the pain of it; Ven on the opposite side of the room nearly fainted and Terra, still holding his hands because they couldn’t break the circle, caught him.

Riku could remember the way Sora smiled as a kid when his front tooth was missing and the first time Sora held his hand, all sweaty and nervous. He could remember the way Sora liked to press kisses to his cheek, which he still did, only know he had to get on tiptoe because Riku was so much taller. He remembered _asking_ Sora out, heart fluttering, weak-kneed, and the way Sora had smiled at him after, blinding, and said _of course, Riku_.

He remembered the darkness that Sora had spoken of, the spirits that he been sapping away at Kairi’s magic and life. 

He remembered it had been _his_ darkness. Festering in his chest, and the way Sora and Kairi had banded together to use their magic to save him. He hadn’t known, then, that it was magic; he’d just known that when he was around them his heart eased and he smiled faster. He didn’t know that his own darkness, the heavy weight of the spirit world he didn’t know exist -- he didn’t know that being around him was sapping Kairi too, that the darkness was preying on them both, that every day they were being drawn closer to the spirit world, and Kairi was going much quicker than him, because her heart was so much more _wanted_. 

He was the reason Sora had paid the price for her. Sora had paid the price for the both of them.

In the middle of their circles, Sora had his eyes closed. He convulsed for a second as all the magic hit him, shaking his slender frame, then his head tipped back. For a moment Riku wondered if he was dead; he seemed to be held up by the sheer force of everyone’s magic, not his own legs.

He almost dropped himself, thinking that thought.

“Riku!” Kairi yelled over the noise, whipping her head to look at him. Her eyes were wide, her hair blowing everywhere, brilliantly pink from all the light. “Come get him! Don’t break the circle but - you have to come get him!”

“What?”

“He’s _stuck_,” Naminé and Kairi yelled in unison. “Come pull him back into the world!”

Riku took a step forward, the circle bending around him. He took another. It was like walking through a gale force wind, every step was hard to take, he had to press his foot until the floor until it took root. It seemed impossible, but he made it to Sora, turning the outer circle into a heart. He raised his hands and with them, Roxas’s hands and Vanitas’s hands. He directed them to his spine and they were the ones who knew what they were doing, not him. Their hands connected to his neck, overlapping each other and hanging on to him, keeping the circle unbroken. Naminé and Kairi lowered their hands so he could step over them, leaving him and Sora inside the magic circle and everyone crisscrossed on the outside, a horrible puzzle.

But Riku’s hands were free, free to reach out for Sora.

He did. He felt it with a rush the second their hands connected, Sora’s head snapping up like he’d been shocked. He still seemed dazed, unseeing.

“Pull!” Xion yelled, locking eyes with Riku. “Right now, pull him out of the circle.”

“But I’ll break it!”

“That’s fine!” Xion said, nodding at him. “Do it! Before we all _faint_.”

Riku took a deep breath. On the back of his neck, Vanitas and Roxas both had an iron grip, their fingers digging in.

He pulled.

Sora stumbled out of the circle, gasping like he had been underwater for years. He crashed into Riku’s chest and the magic abruptly went out, Naminé and Kairi’s hands separating as he and Riku broke their circle. 

“Did it work?” Riku snapped at Roxas, pushing Sora’s hair back to peer into his eyes. He couldn’t _think_, he couldn’t _breathe_. Sora was blinking, but he offered Riku a soft smile as Riku ran his hands over his face, checking for any possible damage. He didn’t find anything, nothing at all.

“It worked,” Roxas said in a strangled sounding voice. “It -- it worked.” 

Relief crashed into Riku, making his knees buckle. He let Sora go, let him rush off to hug his brother for the first time in years, and he sank to the floor, unsteady. Roxas and Sora were both crying, Roxas spilling out apology after apology that Sora didn’t want or need. Ventus and Vanitas crashing into them both only served to make them both cry harder, just a pile of them on the floor.

Riku felt Kairi’s featherlight touch on his arm and looked up at her. She looked lighter. Riku wondered if he looked the same. At the edge of the room, he could see Olette sitting on the ground, looked shell-shocked and staring at Sora. For all accounts and purposes, to her he’d just appeared out of thin air. “Hey.”

She knelt next to him. “You remember anything?”

“Everything, I think,” Riku said. The darkness and the magic - he hadn’t known it was magic then, but - he remembered it all. 

“And - are you okay?”

“I - don’t know,” Riku said truthfully. “I’ll, uh, let you know, okay? I just -” he gestured to Sora in the middle of the dogpile. “I’m so happy, Kairi. I can’t even think about that right now.”

Kairi threw her arms around Riku. “I’m so sorry we had to hurt you.”

“I really think I suffered the least for it,” Riku said dryly, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I’m - I’ll be okay, Kairi, I’m just a little shocked right now. Go talk to the love of your life, okay?”

Kairi pressed a sloppy kiss to her cheek and then left him, crossing over to Olette in a few short steps. Olette immediately pulled her into a desperate kiss; Riku could see Kairi working some pink healing magic on her. Olette was probably incredibly drained from being used as a conduit for - Riku checked his watch - three hours. Come to think of it, so was Riku. He could feel exhaustion in every nerve in his body, dully protesting his every movement.

Sora reached out for Riku, too, pushing his brothers off. He looked happy if a little overwhelmed. He hadn’t had this many people see him, remember him, in years. “Hey,” he said, burying his face in Riku’s chest for just a moment. “I just - stay with me?”

Riku took his hand, more than happy to be his anchor. And everyone wanted to talk to Sora, of course, because Sora was truly beloved. So Riku happily let Sora drag him around to different people, many of whom he remembered now. Leon and Cloud, who owned a dojo where Sora had taken classes; Cid who had fixed his car more times than he could count, when he’d had a car. The Destiny Islands crew Riku remembered, of course, and some people had met Sora before but had no _idea_ that he was cursed, like Axel and Aqua.

Riku just couldn’t get over how it felt to have Sora be _seen_. To stand in a crowded room full of people who loved Sora and who Sora loved back, to not have to lie through his teeth and say he hated crowds, to not have to hug Riku’s back to avoid innocent passerby from bowling him over.

To just _exist_ with Sora.

\-----

Xion, thankfully, was the one who made them all left. She could be very loud for such a tiny person and she did start ushering people out, loudly, after only an hour. Some of them left easily. Some of them did not.

“Like _hell_ I’m leaving--” Roxas snarled. It was almost funny, except for how upsetting it was.

“You can stay on the couch, then,” Riku told him. He was practically holding Sora up, or maybe Sora was holding _him_ up, it was a little hard to tell at this moment. Riku felt absolutely exhausted, totally drained from all the magic pouring through his entirely human body, and Sora was definitely feeling completely drained from being the center of attention for the first time in years. “But it’s four am.”

“Fine.”

“Great,” Riku replied. “Have a nice night.” He hauled Sora up and they started the honestly painful process of getting up the stairs, rudely leaving Naminé and Xion to deal with the sleeping arrangements.

“Hey,” Sora said fuzzily as he pushed open the door. “You did it.”

“We did it,” Riku said, tipping them onto the bed. “Oh, god, I’m _so _sore, is that what you feel like all the time when you run out of magic?”

Sora groaned. “Yeah.”

Riku considered that. “I’m so tired I can’t even roll over and kiss you.” 

He was rewarded by Sora rolling over to kiss _him_ and he moaned, softly, as Sora settled against him. As tired as he was, he was just still so fucking happy. He could _remember_ Sora now. Remembered everything about him. His childhood memories, all in shiny perfect condition, right there in his head. He was surprised to find that less than he expected was new. 

He threw his arms around Sora, pulling him close to his chest. “I know you,” he mumbled. “I mean, I knew you - ugh. I was worried everything would change, once I remembered, but - but I knew you better than I thought.”

Sora dropped a kiss to his chest. “You’re tired,” he said. “I didn’t get that.”

Riku groaned. “I thought I would know all these new things about you,” he said insistently. He could feel his eyes slowly sliding shut but he needed to get this out before he forgot it all. “But I don’t, not really. I knew you before I remembered.”

Sora dropped his head on Riku’s chest. “I made sure of it,” he said softly. “Go to sleep, okay?”

And Riku did.

\-----

He woke up feeling like he’d been run over by a truck. No wonder Sora was always passing out if it felt like _this_ to be awake.

“How you feeling?”

Riku groaned in response. He cracked open an eyelid to see Sora, propped up on an elbow. He was carding his fingers through Riku’s hair and it was the only thing that felt good right now. “Like death.”

Sora’s smile turned sympathetic. “Let me fix that.” He sealed their lips together, sending magic down Riku’s throat. It spread its way through Riku’s lungs, shivered down his spine. He could actively feel the soreness fading away and he groaned into Sora’s mouth.

Sora pulled away, smirking, light dancing in his eyes. “So I’m that good, huh?” 

Riku raised his newly restored arms and reveled in the ability to pull him back close. “I’m so happy,” he mumbled.

“You can finally take me out.”

“I don’t know why people keep thinking I’m such a party animal,” Riku groused, but - yes, he could. Terra would be able to see him in the studios and - not that he had plans to go home, but his mother would be able to remember him and maybe he _would_ go home, now that everything was right with Sora. “I - Sora, you can do _anything_ now.”

“I’m happy here,” Sora replied. He was drawing whimsical little circles on Riku’s chest and when he looked up, he smiled, something soft like the morning light. “I’m not going to go running off to -- to -- I don’t even know where I’d go, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I was happy here. I am _really_ happy with our life, you know.”

Riku smiled up at him, probably looking ridiculously sappy. He just couldn’t help the way the words made his heart flutter, how he felt like a small sun was warming his chest. Sora always made him feel like that. Riku licked his lips, trying to find composure. “I’m really happy with our life too,” he replied. “Much to Roxas’s dismay.” 

Sora howled with laughter, collapsing onto Riku’s chest. Riku could remember why Roxas didn’t like him very much, which was partially just because Roxas adored his older brother and partially because he didn’t think Riku was _good enough_ for his older brother. He’d been right about that.

He could actually hear someone moving in his old room across the hallway - Ventus, probably, but maybe it was Roxas or Vanitas, he didn’t know how the sleeping arrangements had shaken out. He sat up - Sora helped him, once he was done laughing, because his back still ached a little bit, all the way up his spine to his neck, where Vanitas and Roxas had been holding him.

Sora checked the back of his neck for him. “You definitely have a bruise,” he said, cool fingers pressing against it. “Sexy.”

“Gross, that’s from your _brothers_,” Riku responded, making a disgusted face, because _really? _But seeing Sora’s smile over his shoulder in the mirror made it worth it. “Ready to go face them?”

Sora gave him a tenuous smile. Still scared, Riku knew. “Together, right?”

He thought Sora did feel lighter that morning, laughing easier. He had enlisted Roxas’s help cooking, and Roxas was horrendous at it, and while sometimes he was strained - Ventus had asked him when he’d learned, and the answer was obviously _in the last five years_ – it was all okay. The awkwardness didn’t seem like all that much trouble early in the morning when waffles were made, so Riku sat at the table, hands curled around his mug, and watched the brothers work, and Xion tease Roxas about his horrible cooking.

He could tell, when Sora glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes, that Sora was worrying. Not about his place in the world, or fixing the last five years, but about Riku.

He hadn’t said anything yet, clearly unwilling to break the peace this early. Maybe he was still scared. And Riku did remember, remember everything, about how he’d tangled with the spirit world. He hadn’t known, for most of it, but at the end, when Kairi was unconscious and Sora’s nose had been bloody, quickly telling Riku everything before pulling him into a kiss and then - nothingness.

Riku didn’t know how to feel about it. It was in the past and honestly, he’d be happy to leave it there, but he knew he had to be better.

\-----

He was the one to bring it up, surprisingly. “I’m not mad.”

It was a terrible way to open a conversation, and Sora stalled, head half in his shirt before pulling it off his head and gaping at Riku. “You’re-”

“Not mad,” Riku confirmed. “Shocked, I guess, but you don’t have to keep tiptoeing around me.”

“I wasn’t,” Sora protested. Liar. “I just - um. I was lying to you, and I thought - maybe it would be too much? It was a really big lie.”

It had been, but - “Sora, I meant what I said,” Riku said. “I said I’d be with you no matter what happened.”

“Okay, but you didn’t _know_ how much happened-” Sora stopped and took a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

Sora sighed, like he had known what the answer would be, and tugged Riku a little closer. Riku lay his head on Sora’s chest and closed his eyes as Sora ran his fingers through his hair. Like this, he could feel Sora’s chest rise and fall, he could listen to his heart beat. It had always been proof that he was alive, so beautifully alive, but he belonged to _all_ to the world now. “Tell me?”

“I just - I was so _lonely_,” and it wasn’t what he’d expected to say but once it fell out his mouth, he couldn’t remember what was originally there.

“I know-”

“No, you don’t know, you didn’t leave me _anyone_,” Riku said. “I didn’t have Kairi or Tidus, I just was empty, and I just kept going around feeling not right and - and I can’t ever get that back.”

Sora’s hands halted in Riku’s hair for just a moment. “I know.”

He didn’t know. Or he did, but it wasn’t the same, not at all. They’d both been lonely and empty, Riku just hadn’t had the dubious pleasure of remembering the past. He’d just gone around, fooled, thinking for _years_ that he was unable to really make any genuine human connections, and in reality, his heart was just longing for the unbreakable ones he already had.

He’d have been a different person, if just one thing had been different. But then - “What else could you do?”

“Hm?”

“What were your other options,” Riku clarified, lifting his head to look Sora in the face.

Sora mulled it over, which was answer enough. But still, Riku shivered a little when Sora admitted, “We didn’t have any.” He rubbed an apologetic circle on Riku’s shoulder. “Ven’s the only one in my family with really strong magic after my dad died, and Kairi was adopted, so - none.”

“None?”

“None. We didn’t even think _this_ would work, but - ” Sora swallowed. “We weren’t going to give up.”

They weren’t going to give up on _him_. Without him, Kairi would have been fine. He was the one with festering spirits in him. Riku raised a hand to his chest, where he’d had a little dark red scar for as long as he could remember right above his heart. He thought he knew where that came from now.

“Why didn’t you _tell me_,” Riku said, and he was crying. “You did it for me too.”

Sora hugged him back, mostly supporting him. “I couldn’t,” he said softly. It didn’t really matter, anyways, because Riku didn’t think he wanted to be told. And he _had_ told Sora that he didn’t need to be told anything, that this was a new start. He wasn’t mad so much as unable to really figure out how he felt. “It - it would have been too much.”

“I did that to you-”

“You didn’t,” Sora said, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “You didn’t do that.”

“I did,” Riku sobbed. “I was so stupid-”

“We were both stupid,” Sora corrected. “It wasn’t your fault. I mean, you remember now that, um, things weren’t always great between us. We were stupid kids and we got jealous and competitive and - and then I couldn’t tell you _now_. You did so much growing, I didn’t want to ruin that.”

Riku considered that, head pressed to Sora’s chest. Sora clearly thought he was falling asleep, and after an hour, Sora fell asleep too, his hand going still against Riku’s back. 

Riku didn’t sleep. He had too much to think about and his exhausted mind was running it over and over. His fault. His not knowing. His loneliness.

In the end, the answer was easy. He hadn’t even been searching for an answer, not really, because the answer was always staying right by Sora’s side. He’d just needed - well, what he always needed from Sora. A little nudge to help him figure out what he was feeling, to acknowledge them, to have Sora acknowledge them too. 

He poked Sora in the side. Sora flew awake instantly, his rings catching for a brief instant on Riku’s hair. “Fuck - sorry - what’s wrong, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Riku said, smiling. How could he not smile? “I just - I think you were right not to tell me. Or - well, it was a good idea, I don't know if it was right. But I don't think I'd have taken it well.”

“I think you're actually taking it too well,” Sora said, like Riku hadn’t been crying just an hour ago.

Riku smiled against his collarbone. “I think you’re right that it would have been - very bad for me to know that I'd lost something so important to me. Sometimes, it feels like you know me better than I know myself.”

“Not anymore.”

Riku pushed himself up on an elbow. “I wasn't talking about that,” he said, thought it was ridiculous to think that anyone knew Riku better than Sora, including Riku himself. Sora just had a way of seeing through him like he was clear glass. “I just meant - you've always been good at understanding me, even when I was going my best to be incomprehensible.”

“Riku-”

“And I fucked up every day by not letting you know how much I loved you,” Riku told him, because he had loved him. More than anything, he’d loved Sora. He hadn’t always been good at it, but he had. “Maybe if I’d been better at that this wouldn’t have happened - don’t argue, okay, I - I don’t - I’m trying to not blame myself, but everything happened _directly_ because of me. So - I’m not mad. I’m gonna be okay.” He would be. He had Sora, and all his friends. He had, thankfully, a few years of learning to be okay with himself. “But don’t blame yourself either. _We_ did this.”

He caught Sora’s smile in the moonlight, felt Sora’s soft touch push his hair behind his ear. “We did this,” Sora agreed. “And honestly, I know a lot of shit happened, but Riku, I don’t regret it, okay? It worked out pretty good. Getting to fall in love with you twice was - magical.”

“Absolutely the worst pun.”

“You love me.”

“I knew I was being too obvious,” Riku said, but Sora deserved to hear it. “I do, Sora. Love you, I mean.”

\----

Eventually, they’d move out. Chirithy would be angry for days, hissing and batting his tail, upset to see Sora go, but placated by Xion moving in. Riku and Sora would get a little apartment with a big kitchen, still big enough for all their friends and occasional annoying visits from Roxas. Riku would fill it with furniture he made with dedicated attention and careful hands. It was only a bit of walk to the studio and a little bit less to Aqua’s store. Sora would make friends with just about every single one of their neighbors, who always cooed over the both of them like they were just the cutest couple.

For now, in the house where Riku had fallen in love and found a family, things were easy. 

He was falling asleep one night, Sora’s face mashed into the back of his shirt. It was raining, a comforting noise, and Sora had accidentally tripped over someone in the grocery store who’d gotten annoyed with him, and Riku couldn’t stop staring at Sora’s smile, still so pleased and unused to being seen. 

Riku cleared his throat. “I - maybe we should go back to the beach. The paopu tree.”

He could hear the sleepy smile in Sora’s voice. “You’re such a romantic.”

“I want to re-carve it,” Riku insisted. “I was such a stupid kid the first time.”

“You weren’t-”

“Yes, I was,” Riku said. “Anyways, it doesn’t matter. It had magic, and I want to thank it.”

“We could probably go next weekend,” Sora offered. He yawned. “If you can get away from the studio.”

“You know Terra doesn’t know the meaning of schedules,” Riku said. 

He didn’t know what his fascination with going back to the paopu tree was. Sora didn’t seem to care, content to go as long as Riku wanted to. Possibly it was about thanking the tree, since it had been the whole reason Riku had been introduced to another world. Possibly it was about proving to the tree that he _was_ worthy of Sora, that they’d been able to make it back together.

Possibly he wondered if Destiny Islands would feel like home again. He suspected that with Sora by his side, it would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well folks that's all!! that you so much for stickin with me till the end u truly make all this writing worth it . so incredibly worth it

**Author's Note:**

> hahahahah so its magic!!!! time for some urban magic baybeeeeee
> 
> you can find me on twitter at [sorikuvalid](https://twitter.com/sorikuvalid)


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